Pull both the tail and your new yarn through the loop as if they were a single strand of yarn, and drop the old stitch off of your holding needle. However, when I decided to design Hyphenated, my first colorwork sweater, I felt it was important to knit it the way most knitters would go about doing it. This usually leaves "floats" or loose strands of yarn at the back of the work. Stranded Knitting - Catching Long Floats. Though it is possible after knitting to . It creates a lovely fabric on the inside, leaving your knits smooth and snag-free! Notice that each stitch where the tail was carried now contains two loops. The wrong side of a swatch where I change colors in the middle of a row with weave in as you go. In this video I demonstrate a couple of ways to carry floats in fair isle knitting. Charlie Socks by Bethany Richards Just a little colorwork on the toes! First I will knit 2 stitches. Generally with colourwork you plan to steek, you add a narrow strip of stitches where you're planning to cut where you stop doing the colourwork and knit a checkerboard pattern. Slip the other stitches knitwise, with the yarn in the back of your work. Trapping floats when holding one yarn at a time (aka the sado-masochist method*): cross the yarns clockwise before making the stitch, then anti-clockwise after making the stitch. Hold your float yarn away from your working yarn as you knit your next stitch. You wrap one strand around your index finger with a forward loop (it looks a little like a yarn over) and the other strand the exact other around, back to front. Don't jump right into a project without first practicing the colorwork. Work Your Swatch Like a Sock, but with a Steek. For example, a worsted-spun, solid-dyed yarn has a dense, round strand with a nice, saturated color. When I first tried 2 color knitting it felt like learning all over again. Bring your float yarn behind your working yarn. My Learn to Knit Fair Isle tutorial (the hat pattern shown in the video) can be found here. The solution is luckily a very easy one: just turn your knitting inside-out so the floats are on the outside circumference while knitting! If a third stitch in a row is the same color, work as in figure 1 ( note: this was erroneously labeled "figure 5" in the newsletter). You get the following types of projects in the book: 9 hats. At the height of Encircled fabulousness is the Tuva Pullover. If you are brand new to colorwork, you are going to want to start by watching my colorwork tutorial. 1. These needles also help you spread your yarn, so your floats will be evenly spaced. The color changes in Fair Isle are close together. The Knitter's Pride Royale 16 needle set I use in the video can be found here. There are only two tricks to knitting multi- rather than single-color stockinette: 1) Holding the yarn. September 10, 2018. This technique allows for single rows of striping in flat knitting without having to turn the work at the end of the row. Lovely colorwork in the tutorials. Knitrino recommends knitting stranded colorwork with two hands. Insert the tip of the needle into the next stitch as if to knit, place the CC yarn over the needle (figure 2), and then knit 1 with MC (figure 3), pulling only the MC yarn through the stitch (figure 4). Enter the lovely, petite Lykke 3.5" Interchangeable Set.Pronounced "LOO-ka", meaning "happiness" in Norwegian, this weathered grey set is a delight to knit with. on. Wooden needles are great for colorwork because of their grip, so the yarn will not slide off and cause you unnecessary grief. Keep knitting with both your new yarn and the tail until . The most common practice is to hold the yarn in both hands the right hand throws Continental-style while the left picks stitches English-style. Work with needles that do your work for you, and remember to use tools that you will feel comfortable with. Here is a quick fix.Associated Videos:Two color ribbing worked flat. Lift this stitch onto the left-hand needle (b). This is, by the way, a pic of my Bloem hat while in progress. This word describes unused strands of yarn, thread or fiber that are carried across the back of a piece due to a color change on the front of the work. The number of stitches a color has to move without being knit is what makes a colorwork pattern enjoyable for me. That way you don't have floats to worry about, and you have a nice sturdy edge to pick up stitches in etc. Posted on January 13, . If that's the case, you can try loosening up your floats (the section of yarn that gets pulled in the back between two sections that need it). I just learned Portuguese style, and do a Continental Portuguese mishmash whenever I need to purl a lot. Knit the Top Band. wrong side - the back side of the work (where all the . Susan teaches a technique of working two colors without floats. Step 3: While maintaining a small tension on the wrapped yarn, bring the . A circular or double pointed needle . I like this "knitting without rules" vibe that's going around. Those who have known me a while know that I dislike floats in colorwork. Shorter than those included in a traditional interchangeable set, the LYKKE cords allow for more even tension on smaller projects which in turn makes for crisper colorwork. I also show you where I would catch floats while making Linnea. The strand of yarn that is carried lower than the other on the wrong side will create larger stitches and can appear more dominant on the right side of the fabric, so carry the float of the background color in the upper position on the wrong side, and the motif in the lower position. With the sweater inside out and the floats visible, begin, very gently, to knead the wet woolly heap, like dough, while carefully stretching out the floats. 1 stitch, leaving a 6-inch tail. Plus, the bold, graphic pattern is worked with bulky yarn. You then drop the secondary color and finish the knit stitch with your primary color. Stranded colorwork is traditionally knit in woolly wool yarnsnice and insulating for those isles and fjords. This method speeds up your knitting, but if it feels more natural to hold both yarns in one hand, wrap one around your index finger and one around your middle finger. You've effectively trapped the float already! This technique involves twisting the working yarn around another strand of working yarn to "lock" it into . The style of strandworsted-spun or woolen-spunwill have an impact on how your colorwork motifs look. When you work in stranded knitting, only one color is being used in a stitch at a time, obviously. Step 1: Insert the needle into the stitch you plan to catch your back float on. Like making dough! First, you need to insert the right needle into the first stitch on the left needle like you're going to purl the stitch (hence the term ' purlwise ' - also commonly referred to as ' as if to purl ' in many knitting patterns). 4. This allows you to carry the yarn you aren't knitting with across the back of the work as you go. tutorials Andrea Rangel April 23, 2019 colorwork, colourwork, video, tutorial, how to, knitting, stranded colorwork, steek . This technique uses two or more colors of yarn to create intricate designs. Posted in Video Lessons Tagged color work, . November 20, 2017. This will ensure your floats getting long enough so they won't cram your fabric together. Knit the lifted stitch (in color A) and the next stitch (the first stitch of color B . In the tutorial I explain: - How to read a colorwork chart Keep an eye on your tension. 2. It is fun to knit and easy once you get the hang of it. With colorwork, the float (or non-working yarn) is traveling in a straight line between stitches (black, in the example above), so it doesn't have the same slack to stretch with. Follow your chart and knit all stitches of that color. The easygoing cousin of stranded colorwork, slip-stitch knitting is a fun and easy technique that brings more color into your work without the stranding or trapping of floats like Fair Isle, or fussiness of intarsia. Pull through to make a stitch. Fair Isle is a colorwork technique in knitting, in which you work with multiple colors at once. Knitrino recommends knitting stranded colorwork with two hands. Linnea is knit top down, in the round. Just a little colorwork on the toes! There's a simple solution to that! They will overlap a bit. That will trap the float. 15 colors, regular three-color rows, multiple yarns, knit/purl texturing. Charlie Socks by Bethany Richards. How to Make Stranded Colorwork Knitting Go Smoothly . Some knitters might find that they need to change needle sizes during the colorwork sections to maintain gauge throughout; this is optional and perfectly fine. When the stitch is finished, it looks just like a normal stitch from the front. Now at this point you are probably wondering what on earth a float is. Place a marker and join for working in the round. 2 Knit the first row again, this time without stopping! Another very handy method to change colors is weaving in ends as you go. The colorwork was intended for the floats to be easily manageable, but if you prefer no floats at all, read on! Do you have problems with your float catches showing through to the front of the fabric. This is particularly noticeable when you have a section of colorwork contained within a section of single-color knitting. Yarn floats, the strands of yarn you carry behind your knitting for some colorwork, are perhaps the trickiest part of knitting colorwork for beginners. Some pointers: 1) Always carry the unused color loosely in the back. Foreground color nearest the fingertip, background further down. Feel free to use whatever colors you want for these charts and make any adjustments you'd like to the charts, and show me whatever you choose to make with them in the comments below! Here you can see the dark purple yarn in between the two needles. Knitrino recommends knitting stranded colorwork with two hands. You only use one color at a time to create the motif, so there is no worry about managing multiple yarns. You should be able to knit the colorwork and Stockinette sections to the same gauge. Catching Floats in Colorwork. The biggest problem most people new to stranded knitting have is pulling the yarns too tightly when changing between yarns. Step 2: As if learning how to start knitting, using your RH, bring the yarn from the left side of the right-hand needle to the front and over to the RH needle, moving down and right between the needles. I guess it depends on the person. Knit the Colorwork. My favourite method for working stranded colorwork is to hold one color yarn in the left hand and the other color in the right hand. I knit with both hands with 2 colors. When knitting this herringbone pattern, the longest number of stitches in one color is three. It is fairly easy to mange these relatively short floats. This interchangeable set comes equipped to . The unused yarn ends up "floating" behind the pattern. Linnea is the tutorial for catching floats in Chapter 3. The strand of yarn that is carried lower than the other on the wrong side will create larger stitches and can appear more dominant on the right side of the fabric, so carry the float of the background color in the upper position on the wrong side, and the motif in the lower position. Slide your right-hand needle underneath the floating strand (blue), then wrap the working yarn (charcoal) around your needle to knit the stitch.