Stranded/Fair Isle knitting

[tmayl7]

Hi every body! new to the forum...knitted mainly one color scarves and the such but my new project is full tartan/argyle socks for highland dancing. I can't find anything in the video, but maybe I just missed it, about when you need to knit more than five stitches in one color and then switch to a different color...maybe I'm just slow. Thanks in advance for the help.

[Hildegard_von_Knittin]

Hi, and welcome!


Amy's videos for colorwork are here , but I'm guessing from your post you've already looked at them.

To avoid the long floats you can just twist the strands together in the back. I'm not sure that you'd want to do the intarsia method (knitting with separate bobbins of color for each section) on socks, especially argyle, where you only have 1 stitch in a CC. That's a lot of ends to weave in!


Good luck!

[Ingrid]

Whether or not you need to twist the stitches in the back really depends on your gauge. Five is not an automatic number. If you're using really fine yarn, you can strand for more stitches than you would for worsted weight. I usually strand after about an inch, if needed.

One way you can do it without getting your yarn tangled is this:

Insert your needle for the next stitch. Bring the carried yarn under the yarn in use and over the tip of your needle from back to front. Wrap the next stitch and take off the carried yarn from the needle point. It will be caught at the back without twisting or showing through.

[redwitch]

wait there's a way to do this WITHOUT having any colour difference showing through and reducing elasticity? Shortening your floats without twisting the wools together? How did I not hear about this?
But I'm having trouble visualizing the wool movement, what do you mean by 'over the needle tip back to front'? How does this differ from over the tip front to back?
Do you mean across my needle from right to left in front of the work (on my side)?

Sarah

[Ingrid]

I guess another way to say it that when you knit normally, you wrap your yarn counterclockwise. For the carried yarn, it's clockwise.

You'll bring it from the back to front over the tip of the right needle.

If either explanation isn't clear enough, I'll get a picture.

[nuknitter]

I bow down, Ingrid, and beg you to help!

I would love to learn to do this, so I can knit the Fake Isle Hat, but am having trouble visualizing your directions. If you get a chance, please do post a photo! Much, much thanks ...

[Ingrid]

First thing tomorrow!

[redwitch]

I thought that was called twisting the wools together and it makes the fabric a bit less stretchy and in worst cases the colour behind can show through, I do that when I think it's appropriate, are we talking about the same thing here (I think it's shown on the Philosopher's Wool videos)?

Sarah

[Ingrid]

I learned the technique from the Philosopher's Wool book, but I found that it doesn't actually twist the yarns. If you're knitting with white and carrying black across the back, there will always be some show-through, but in this case the yarn just kind of sits behind the other stitch, so I find that it doesn't show through much. I don't think it makes it tighter, either, but I've gotten into the habit of stretching out the stitches on the right-hand needle, anyway. I just don't want huge loops.

I haven't gotten a picture yet--I actually forgot about it, I will get to it later.

[redwitch]

Like this? http://sockpr0n.blogspot.com/2006/10...-knitting.html that's basically what I do.

Sarah