Hi,
So this may have been asked already but i guess i will ask it again beucase i could not really find what I am looking for. I am knitting a hat and knitting in words to the pattern. The words do not take up the whole round of the hat so I have to carry along the yarn throughout the non fair isled part of the hat. This is making it REALLY tight though and not at all stretchy. Is there another way that I could night this hat so it has more stretchyness to it?
When you are carrying the yarn you need to make sure the floats are [U]loose[/U]. Here’s a video that might help.
http://www.philosopherswool.com/Pages/Twohandedvideo.htm
Perhaps you could knit it flat and use intarsia for the letters instead of knitting it in the round. Is there a lot of other Fair Isle on the hat, or just the letters? If it is all Fair Isle I see your point of wanting to do it in the round, but if the letters are all there is flat might be better in this case.
I suppose using a stretchy sock yarn is out of the question. :roll:
First, follow Jan’s advice and don’t tug on the floats, make them loose.
Then, can you add a few purls evenly space to make wide knit ribbing? Like a k5 p1 and just weave the unused color on sts 2 and 4 of the knits.
How about a fair isle pattern to use on the opposite side from the letters.
Unused color is 'X’
rnd 1: OOOXXOOXXOOXXOOO
rnd 2: OXXOOXXOOXXOOXXO
rnd 3: OOOXXOOXXOOXXOOO
or
or make your own pattern with graph paper or with Excel or other spreadsheet program.
I just watched the Fair Isle video. I understand everything except the circumstances under which a person would want to use the “4th stitch” as described in the video. In the video the person demonstrates a stitch where she “pretends to knit” and then “unknits” the pretend knit. I see what she is doing, but dont understand when/why she would do it. Can you explain?
I haven’t watched the video you are talking about but I think you are talking about catching in the unused yarn as you work across with 2 colors. If you have to carry a yarn more than 5 stitches from the place it was last used to where it is used next you can’t just make a super long float or loop across the back so there is a way to catch them in that is probably what you are describing as pretending to knit it and then unknitting the pretend knit. This is a way to bring the yarn along over long distances without having over long floats.
[color="#330099"]
I use the two handed method shown in the Philosopher’s Wool (PW) Fair Isle video. Merigold, is correct, the 4th stitch is to weave the unused color from right hand yarn behind the stitch made with the color from the left hand yarn.
I believe the PW Fair Isle video recommends no more than two stitches of the same yarn without weaving in the unused yarn. For sweater or socks, a float of 3 or more stitches can be a source of snags for fingers or toes when putting on the garment.
I think they use X for yarn from the left hand (LH) and O for yarn from the RH. So you would need stitch 4 if your pattern is …
[SIZE=“4”]OXXXOXXX [/SIZE]
[I](charts are read from right to left)[/I]
The act of wrapping the unused yarn (pretend knit) before wrapping the yarn to be knit and then unwrapping (un-pretend knit) causes the yarns to twist or wrap before and then untwist after the stitch. This captures the unused yarn within the stitch in a way that is not visible from the RS of the work.
For another instructional source on multi color knitting you can try this PDF link.
( http://www.knitpicks.com/images/pdf/colorknitting.pdf )
and 
[/COLOR]
Just a different perspective on catching in floats every 2 stitches as OffJumpsJack has mentioned. This a blog page by a lady who does beautiful color work and she says she rarely catches in floats and tells a bit of why. She has some other pages in her blog about floats and much on color work.LINK