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| I am absurdly proud of this |
My local fabric and yarn shop has stopped stocking a particular brand of 4 ply, and was selling off the remaining stock absurdly cheaply, so I bought a few balls of that to practise with. I knitted a swatch with a few rows of stocking stitch as a base and then, armed with a YouTube video and my trusty copy of the Ultimate Knitting Bible by Sharon Brant, I launched into it.
The book recommended starting with a simple chequer pattern, so that you can concentrate on just handling the yarns rather than trying to follow a pattern as well, so that's what I did. It also illustrates various methods of holding the yarns in one or both hands, but I settled on a sort of hybrid method which would no doubt make knitting purists weep, but works for me. Hopefully, my technique will get better over time.
The video was Susan Crawford's second video for her colourwork KAL, and she demonstrated how she knits stranded colourwork in the round. Much of the information was equally applicable for knitting flat, and I found it really helpful. The main thing I learned was the importance of consistently passing one colour over the top of the stitches, and one colour over the bottom. It gives a neater finish, and stops the yarns from getting tangled. I did do this the wrong way round on one row of my sample - it's at the top, where there are two yellow strands close together.
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| Stranding across the back |
The best way to keep the upper and lower stranding right seems to be to work with one yarn each side of you. But because I prefer to knit in a chair without arms, I had the two balls of wool balanced on my lap, which didn't work at all well. I considered putting them in my tie-on pockets, but those aren't really the right shape and size for the job. The basic idea was fine, though, so I have started making a new set of pockets just for holding wool. They are more shallow and open than my original pockets, almost like small baskets.
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| Pocket making in progress |
I added a deep pleat at the centre, so that hopefully the ball of wool will stay securely in the pocket and not fall out.
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| Holding a ball of wool |
Knitting-wise, the next stage is to try another practice piece, but this time following an actual pattern. There's still a long way to go before I'm at all proficient at this, but I'm excited to be adding another skill to my knitting education.
Good for you! I was totally intimidated by stranded work until I tried it and then I totally enjoyed the process. (As for "proper" technique with stranded, there isn't really one. I'm an English knitter, so I had to learn continental in order to hold the strands in both hands at the same time, and I still struggle to get color dominance right, but mostly, it is a smooth process!) My other hot tip is from Tasha at By Gum by Golly, which is to keep stretching your stitches along the way to keep the tension on the floats even. I'm a pretty tight knitter and my first attempt at stranded came out too tight, but after I found that little tip, my tension has been pretty good! Kate Davies also has some good tips on stranded knitting on her blog. Eager to see what you make next!
ReplyDeleteOh, one other thing, there are rings you can wear to keep your strands straight, especially if you are working more than two colors in a row. Etsy has them. They are kind of funky and I don't think it would work for me since I hold yarn in two hands, but just passing that along in case it is helpful to you!
ReplyDeleteThanks for the tips Juliana. I'm longing to do more colourwork, but I really need to concentrate on my mum's Christmas present for now.
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