Stranded knitting III

I tried to watch Gossip Girl tonight but wasn't into it; instead, here's the third installment in my stranded-knitting techniques series. (There may be more, if I keep going in my project and think of something that needs to be covered, but for right now this is it. However I am thinking of one more...on blocking.)

Let's say you're the purest of continental knitters, and even with stranded knitting your right hand never wraps a stitch. You only pick, and you're very comfortable doing it. I'm sure you'd like to weave in your strands just like the two-handed knitters—it's not fair that they have all the fun. Here's a little trick for you. This may have been talked about somewhere before, more eloquently than my abilities allow, but I hope my little comic helps somebody. Knowing this trick has certainly helped me.

The basic principle of weaving is that while knitting you are sort of winding the two strands around each other so that the yarn that isn't used gets secured in along with the yarn that is. The two-handed method is a two-part technique that both weaves (step 1, the wrapping/unwrapping part) and locks (step 2, when you simply knit the next stitch) your unused yarn in place. (Me, personally? I switch hands when I need to weave in a lot of the mc, or I do the first part of the weaving technique without the second, and as long as I maintain even tension this works just fine. Wrap the mc as you usually do, then wrap the cc, then unwrap the mc and knit. Knit the next stitch normally. Note: This may not work for you. I am not even sure it works for me, but I feel better when I do it.)

I admit this method is a bit scratch-and-dent, it's not as graceful as some techniques are, but if you practice it you'll quickly build speed, and the first time you put it into practice you'll be able to see exactly what to do next. Try it out!

Here's the comic.



P.S.: I bought my wire coil strickfingerhut at JoAnn for about $5. It's called a Norwegian knitting thimble and looks like this.

Stranded knitting II

You may be knitting along and suddenly hit a bump in the road: you know that wool sticks, and you're using wool, but are your stitches really going to stay even when you've got to leap your main colour behind 10 contrast stitches?

That's when you need to know how to weave your strands as you go. As knitting tips go, this is up there in the big time. Knowing how to do this will help you make your knitting more even, help you bridge needle-gaps without ladders or too-tight turns, and keep you from snagging your fingernails in your selbuvotter. (HA!) You can use it to hide your ends as you go after joining a new colour yarn (provided the back side of your knitting isn't public), or even to hide your ends when you've changed to a new ball of yarn. It's endlessly useful and I hope it helps you.

So, here's a chart on how to do it. I'm loving my little comics and I hope I am not trying your patience by using them. This is the first of two; how to weave when you are holding one strand in your left and one in your right. Next up will be weaving holding two strands in your left. (That one is something I figured out on my own.)

Oh, and to answer from the comments - what to do with the purling when you don't purl well with your right hand? I would recommend using a strickfingerhut and purling from that (very easy) or to make it even easier, learn to Norwegian purl. It's *very* easy and if you Google around you'll see exactly what to do. Norwegian purling is a method of continental purling where you never need bring your yarn to the front. I think you will go much faster and enjoy your knitting more if you aren't always grinding your teeth at the purl stitches. (I'm not even sure I know how to purl with the yarn in my right hand!)

Comic! Right!



For another pictorial representation of this technique, click here. She has a few more pictures and also works through it using the same color yarns to join a new ball. Good stuff!

Stranded Knitting I

Ok, hopefully my ramblings yesterday made you sort of interested in colour knitting.

One thing I have had a terrible time with is the issue of yarn dominance. Yarn dominance basically means that one of your yarn colours will be slightly more emphasized than the other in your final piece, and therefore dominant. This makes your pattern more prominent than the background.

I've heard a lot of people talk about it, and some say to play around with your colours to see what works - but I've never had any luck at that. I tend to learn things by condensing down the basic principles into a simple rule. "Simple" means something that can easily become automatic, like which way to wrap your stitches. I also believe that simplicity breeds consistency. It's much easier to be consistent at something simple than at something overly complicated.

So for whatever reason, "yarn dominance" has always been one of those really complicated issues - I hold the yarn different every time, or I can't quite see what they mean, or whatever. This went on until I found a wonderful explanation here (and yes, do go click the link, then come back here). It crystallized the principle for me - contrast yarn rides below - but what does that look like in practice?

My simple rule is: Contrast colour goes in your left hand. This means it will ride below the other colour. Don't believe me? Well, I took pictures! Here's a chart.



To help me remember, I **do** write on my pattern which yarn goes in which hand:
Orange = background colour / right hand
Gold = contrast colour / left hand

Note: If you're a two-color knitter who holds both strands in your RIGHT hand, please write in and let me know how you handle this issue. I played around with this for hours and could not figure out how to do it with both strands in my right hand - then again, I can barely knit right-handed.

There are two more posts/comics in this series. They can be found here: Stranded Knitting II and here: Stranded Knitting III.