How do I avoid bubbling in my stranded colorwork?

I knit the left hand of Purl Soho’s Celestial Hand Warmers, my first attempt at colorwork. I used the Clover Yarn guide and knit Norwegian style.

After finishing and blocking, there’s some unfortunate bubbling/puffed out sections, in the colorwork.

Specifically, it seemed to happen in the part of the chart where there are several CC stitches, 1 MC stitch, several CC stitches.

Screen Shot 2022-11-10 at 12.59.07 PM

What can I do differently/better next time to avoid the bubbles? I really enjoy using the yarn guide + norwegian knit stitch, so I am hoping I can keep doing that.

This is so frustrating and disappointing. The problem is the strands are too tight and pull in. I find myself adjusting tension all the time with stranded colorwork to loosen things up or tighten an overly long strand. As long as you can work out your tension issues I see no problem with your knitting style or using the yarn guide. If you’re not familiar with Arne and Carlos you might check out their videos on You Tube. I find Norwegian knitting as they do much too difficult for tensioning the yarn but they have some good tips on many things knitting. I’ve also learned a lot from Roxanne Richardson on You Tube.

This shows how to keep the strands long enough and is short enough to watch

The good news is that with practice things improve. I just finished knitting a stranded project that I’m not completely unhappy with.

4 Likes