PLEASE HELP w/ COLOR POOLING Problem

[GinnyG]

I am working on the sleeves of a neck down Knitting Pure & Simple pattern in a varigated yarn. The color pattern throughout the sweater has been just lovely.

SUDDENLY, while working on the sleeves the patterning of the colors has changed DRAMATICALLY. Instead of be small splashes of color I am getting BLOTCHES. It's going to look VERY STRANGE to have just the end of the sleeves like this. I assume it has to do with the decreasing n the stitches.


WHAT CAN I DO??????????????????

[Deeknit]

I think this is what most refer to as pooling. If you still have another ball of yarn, the suggestion is to change balls of yarn every 2 rows..

[GinnyG]

I do have another, and with a second sleeve to go that might help.

I did just find reference to "color pooling" on Google which suggests using two balls of yar but doesn't really say HOW.

If I use two balls and alternate every 2 rows do I just carry the strand of yarn down (as in fair isleknitting)? what happens when I get to the ribbing?????

[Ingrid]

Yes, just carry the other strand down. As for the ribbing, I don't know why you can't just keep doing that.

I think pooling looks cool--but maybe not at the end of a sleeve.

[GinnyG]

SIGHHHHHHHHHHHHH, I'm ripping out an entire evenings knitting

I wouldn't mind the pooling if it were "throughout", in fact it would make for a pretty neat pattern but the sudden change in pattern looks VERY odd.

This is the most stitches I've every had to rip out, I'm afraid to take it off the needles so I'm "knitting back" one stitch at a time

[yarnbee]

There's an easy fix to this! See Amy's video on the Basic Techniques page. Scroll down to Fixing Mistakes and look at Inserting a needle into destination row, before unraveling
This is very easy to do! Life's too short to spend time "tink"ing when you don't have to!
BTW, your sweater is gorgeous!

[GinnyG]

OH MY GOSH!!! I wish I'd seen that hours ago!!!!!!!!!!!! I "reverse knitted" for about two hours this morning and finally put it down.

I'm off to try the technique!!!



Later...... worked great, wish I had doen it earlier. Now I'm trying to keep track of double points and two balls of yarn

[yarnbee]

Ginny,
I rushed to get that message posted and hoped you would see it before you started tinking. Oh well, you can try it some other time.
Thank God for Amy's videos. What would we do without them?

[GinnyG]

Thanks!! I was able to use it for quite a bit, I had to frog about 25 rows.

Sadly though I may be froggging again. I re knitted about four inches of sleeve and even with alternating balls I am still coming up with a decidedly different "color scheme" than the body of the sweater. PLUS I must be doing something wrong carrying the yarn up, there is a small each time I bring the yarn up, not really a hole but a larger space between stitches

I think I'm going to rip back and go back to the original problem....... I have a knitting class tonight for another project, I'm going to take this sweater and see what the instructor thinks.

It's been a very frustrating weekend.


Later yet.......

OH DANG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I just watched Amy's video on "Intarsia" and think I figured out my problem, I didn't twist the yarn when I changed colors, hense the small space. I guess when I get home from work today I'll be frogging again. But this time I know how to do it FAST

[yarnbee]

I don't have much experience with alternating colors, but perhaps you are still in the same, or close to the same place colorwise, in the yarn from each ball?

This sounds very frustrating!
I hope it works out.