Hi. I’m knitting a 2 colored scarf. Each color is double stranded. My problem is that my strands all keep getting twisted. Right now of have each ball in nits own bowl but it’s still twisting. Any advice?
Thanks
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If I need to untwist strands of yarn usually colorwork, I let the project dangle while hoding the strands nead the skeins. The project unwinds the twist that way.
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In 2 colour work I make sure to turn my work in a certain direction after each row. Right side rows I turn clockwise and wrong side rows I turn anti clockwise. On the first turn the yarns will seem to twist but you can ignore it so logn as you turn the correct way at the end of the row they will untwist. That’s the colours.
For double stranded twists, they do just twist, around each other even when motionless on the floor or in a bowl, the action of wrapping the needle and putting in tension wraps the strands. I did a small swatch with 5 strands of fingering yarn today and initially it was quite messy. I noticed if I left the yarn shorter than I normally would I got no twists, or at least none which wouldn’t undo by just lifting my knitting off my knee and re-tensioning all strands. You don’t want to work with the yarn tugging at the ball as it will alter your knitting tension but I usually pull out plenty in one go when i knit and I found if i just pulled out a smaller amount the twisting reduced. Maybe you will find the same. When i paid attention to both this, and turning alternate directions I had no twisting and was able to put my work away without any untwisting at all.
Another option is to get rid of the balls and instead work with a few meteres of each colour as a loose strand, no ball, no bobbin. It looks very twisted when working but when you need a colour you pull the yarn loose from the needle end (not at the twists/knots)and so long as you keep the tangle loose it will just come through and free up. I’ve made colour work and detailed intarsia this way with dozens of strands hanging at once, it looks like a nightmare of knots but every strand pulls through at the needle end and frees up.
With this method you end up with more tails to weave in (due to shorter lengths), you might not want this for a scarf or you might turn the tails into a feature.
When I first started knitting that way I think the tutorial I saw said cut 2 to 3 meters of yarn to work with, I would cut more like 8 or 10 and still manage to knit no problem so long as there are no balls, no bobbins.
In fact I was just trying something out today so didn’t want to cut my yarn as I’ll be undoing it but if/when I make a sweater with the 5 strands held together I would cut my meters from the ball and work with a loose tangle as i find it easier than with balls.
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