I am knitting a sweater, putting an intarsia design on the front. One part of the design involves switching from color A to color B, but color B was last worked 9 stitches ahead (see the image, the green yarn is currently at the blue arrow, I am at the red, needing that green), so just pulling that yarn back would mean a large float. What is the best practice for catching that float?
Bringing Intarsia color in several stitches
Welcome to the forum!
One of the best things to do with intarsia is to look ahead to the next row. See where you will need to make a color change and plan for it. I know thatâs not much help when youâve already worked the row but thatâs the best way to work this.
The neatest thing to do is to tink back a row and carry the green yarn as you work the 9 yellow sts, catching the float as you knit.
Hereâs a video for catching floats if you need it and also one for tinking just in case.
Hi
I canât disagree with salmonmac with regards to the best way to work the colour.
But, itâs possible to bring that green yarn across the 9 stitches and then work in the float as you knit the green across.
In the photo I just did a sample. The yellow yarn comes from way over on the left of the fabric, I tink 1 stitch in pink and re work it making sure to catch the yellow to trap it behind the pink stitch so it is held in place. I make sure the float is long enough not to distort the fabricor stitches. Then I knit with yellow. The very long float I pretend is a second yarn ball and trap it in like regular floats, I did this every 4 stitches to make the floats smaller. The picture shows a few smaller floats and then a very long one where I have not yet worked it in.
It works OK, everything is sturdy even if not exactly the right way of doing things. If I was 9 stitches away Iâd do this and trap the float every 3 stitches. I wouldnât do this across the full width of a sweater as I think it would be harder to judge the tension of the long float but over a short section I would do it.
I was working a purl row by the way.
I dont quite follow on how you treat that float like a second ball to catch it, how can you twist it since both ends are caught?
@Creations, itâs kind of you to make a sample work-around here. If Iâm interpreting correctly youâre suggesting is to drag the green yarn across from the blue arrow in the post photo to the red arrow but leave it a bit loose. As you knit with the green, catch the long stretch of green with the current working strand of green.
Thatâll work but itâs not so clean even if you twist the green strand with the last yellow stitch. To me, since youâre taking time to do this, why not do it right and take out the row?
Because tinking that would amount to tinking like 300 (150 back to the start of this ârowâ, and then another 150 back to where this is to be able to catch the green forward) stitches back. The way I am doing the sweater is in the round, not panels, and this bit is at the end of the ârowâ.
That is a lot. Maybe creating the long float is worth it.
Iâm interested in how youâre working intarsia in the round. Are your motifs all around the sweater or are you carrying the yarn over large areas? Iâm interested because Iâve only worked intarsia in the round with a form of short rows.
You essentially switch from in the round to rows, but keep joining as you go with yarnovers.
The first row of the design, go normally until you got to the end of the round, then turn, add a yarn over, and continue on back around. Once you get back to the beginning, ssk/p2tog the last stitch and the yarnover you made, turn, yarnover, and so on.
I decided on this because I didnât want to carry the yellow for the chest design around the back,which is basically empty. I got the method from some youtube videos (I actually only started knitting a few weeks ago, it just clicks really well for me.)
Hi
@salmonmac has described it well.
Lift the green yarn from blue arrow and bring to where you need it, keeping it long enough to work back to where it has been picked up from (9 stitches ahead) to measure the correct length of yarn for this long float stretch out your stitches fully on both needles so you donât not cause bunching by a too short float.
The green yarn is âattachedâ to the yellow in the last stitch or 2 of the yellow by trapping it in behind the stitch (like in the video above). Now you have a green working yarn and a long green float. Catch the float behind the stitches as you work with the working yarn, both yarns are green but the method is the same as the video. The difference with the video is that the yarns are 2 different colours and the knitter has a lot of yarn to move around, you wonât have a lot of yarn as your float is already attached both ends, however you can still manipulate the float yarn in the same way, it only has to be lifted over the right needle as you work the new stitch.
Perhaps the confusion is that at each new part of your intarsia you are doing a full twist to connect the 2 Co,ours. This is fine and many tutorials show this, but I do not do this. Other methods do not create a full twist but just an interlock dropping the yarn to the left and picking up the new colour on the right (making a single cross over behind).
Looking at your chart, you will have the same or similar problem coming up on the next row where the the yellow will need to travel up from the row below and then across 9 stitches behind the work before it is introduced as the working yarn for the next yellow section. You will catch that yarn behind in the same way.
On my sample I did a lot more than 9 stitches and the float has not become too tight to work.
Another work around, again not ârightâ, is to tink back several stitches and work in a new piece of green, weaving in as you go across the tinked stitches so it is trapped in, then work it into your proper green yarn when you get there and weave in a tail. Again not perfect but a work around.
I had a horrible batch of badly dyed yarn and made half a sweater in little bits of yarn to avoid the problem areas and match up the self striping colours which meant dozens of short bits of yarn, tails all woven in as I went and sometimes I just worked a float behind to avoid a dirty section. The sweater has been washed and worn plenty and not fallen apart despite all the tails and weaving in.
I hope either salmonmacs description or this further explanation might help you work it out.
I know as a beginning knitter I wouldnât want to tink back as far as you need just because my tinking skills were not so good. Although all these things are good practise to learn and improve our skills.
Sorry I just want to say this is probably not the case at all. I was reading your chart with a âworking flatâ head on and forgot you are in the round.
The colours change will not be as I describedâŚ
âŚbut the work around solution for getting across 9 stitches and catching the float works either way.
Yup, thatâs the way to go rather than carry a yarn all the around. Iâve used the German short row technique at the turn and not been so happy with the way it stacked. The yarn over sounds like a good way to go. Thanks for the tip and enjoy working your pattern!