I’ve been knitting for years and have been adding charts and stripes and things to my mittens and other things for a long time. The method i use to change coulors is a method that i sort of made up myself and it has always been flawed. I have some puckering and sometimes some holes. I want to try my hand at intarsia because it is so beautiful but i need some help. Does anyone have a video they recommend that shows a close up of the yarn when the switch happens? I have one of these thing you stick on your finger that you strand the wool thru and then you knit with it but my method involves “twisting” the wool for each colour change and i don’t see how this would allow me to do that so i sort of assume i don’t need to do it. Im definatly missing something. I hope this is making sense. Can someone give me some advise on how to perfect my technique so my coulor changes are more fluid? Thanks a lot for all help.:yay:
The thingy that goes on your finger is for stranded knitting, where you switch colors as you go along the row and carry both across the entire row.
For intarsia, you do need to twist the stitches, but it’s pretty simple to do. When you get to the spot where you have to switch colors, hold the yarn that you’ll be stopping over to the left, on top of the color hanging and waiting to be worked.
As you lift the new color, it will come up from under. On the purl side, do the same thing–bring the old color over to the left on top of the hanging strand. Doing this on every row will automatically twist the colors.
When you start a new color, you can catch the tail of the new color a couple of stitches before actually knitting with it, and you’ll avoid a hole where you start it. If you do get a hole on the first stitch of a new color, it can easily be closed when you weave in the tail.
Thanks Ingrid, that is just what i do. I guess i’ll be more confident know that i know it’s right. I do want to give the stranded knitting a try though. But what’s up with that? You dont have to twist the stitches? Can you give me more info on that? And what do you think of the finger thingy? I feel like a big goof with it on my finger. I may just try it bare back. Thanks for the info, i look forward to you response.
You actually want to avoid twisting when you do stranded knitting and try to carry one strand on the top and one on the bottom like this: [COLOR=Red]___________________________
[COLOR=MediumTurquoise] ___________________________ [COLOR=Black]It’s not the end of the world if there’s a twist, but it saves having to untwist your yarns in the end.
I’ve never used the thingy, but I did get one for free. I just haven’t done any stranded since I got it. I do plan on trying it, though, to see if it makes a difference. Many people use both hands, one for each color. I use only my right hand, with one yarn over my finger and one that’s pinched. I’ve seen conti knitters use both strands over one finger and just switch which yarn gets grabbed. Braden has an impressive video of himself knitting stranded that way. Very fast and efficient.:notworthy::notworthy:
With intarsia, you’re stopping one color entirely and starting a new one at the color change, so you have to twist them to join the two yarns.
With stranded, each color is knit in turn as you go across the row, so there’s no stopping/starting point for either color.
[/COLOR][/COLOR][/COLOR]
When I have done stranding I have used one of those things and I don’t like it. The best thing I have used was a hair tie (one of the thicker ones) when I first started, but now I don’t use anything.
I just hold them both on my pointer finger and knit with one and then change to the other when needed. I just loop the one I need. Does that make sense?