Basic FAQ
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Basic FAQ
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Q: Would you advise knitting arans in the round?
A: I was asked about the advisability of knitting Fulmar in the round. Yes, you could adapt the pattern to do that. But I wouldn't. The front of the smallest size of Fulmar is 236 stitches. Double that and you've got almost 500 stitches. More for the larger sizes. And heavy cabling. That's a heckuva big piece of knitting to haul around on your circular needle, especially when you get near the top.
Another reason why I prefer to knit arans in pieces is that the sewn seam adds stability to the finished piece. Even knitted in a fine gauge wool, this is a heavy sweater.
And the last reason is that having wrong side rows helps you keep track of the pattern. On the wrong side rows of arans, you generally just work straight across, knitting the knit stitches and purling the purl stitches. If you're always on the right side, which you are in the round, you have to remember more carefully where the non-patterning rows are.
Q. What would you suggest for a first Aran pattern?
A. Alice Starmore's Na Craga which is in her Aran Knitting book.
DPN/Sock Questions
Q. How do I keep the "line" that forms between my dpn's when knitting in the round on dpns ?"
Okay . . . um . . . don't hate me, but . . . um . . . I never get a line that forms between dpns.
But I do know what you mean -- that line of loose stitches that makes it obvious that you were knitting on dpns, right?
I can tell you this -- I do consciously tighten up on the first stitch on each dpn when knitting socks. I've also heard that using 5 instead of 4 dpns helps alleviate the problem -- I always use 5 dpns.
From the comments:
It's easy to avoid that "ladder"...You just have to knit a few of the stitches of the new needle to the old needle....
For example, you have 64 stitches, 16 per needle. You knit 17 stitches putting them all in the same needle (the first one of the second needle will then go on the first needle). Then you take your spare needle, and knit 16 stitches (or 17 if you like) and so on. That way, you never change needles in the same place, and you don't have a loose joint on top of another, forming that sort of ladder...
Posted by: Noemie on April 18, 2003 05:37 AM
Easy ladder solution : wash knitting ,whilst damp yank it about vertically and horizontally. Don't be afraid to be vigorous !Then pat & block to shape.As EZ said ''Time is a great evener''.
Posted by: Emma on April 18, 2003 05:42 AM
Another easy solution (easiest for me):
When you've knitted the stitches off one needle (and I also use 5 dpns), take the new empty needle, place it above the just-worked needle, and form a tent with the empty needle and the about-to-be-worked needle with the just-worked needle pointing through the front. In other words, instead of starting to knit with your empty needle underneath the just-worked needle, start to knit with it above. I hope that makes sense..it's so much easier to show than to explain.
Posted by: Cheryl on April 18, 2003 09:43 AM
i've always been told to make sure you pull the second stitch really tight on the next needle. i assume it's because pulling tight on the first one won't last if you're too loose on the next or something? anyway, i usually knit about the first 2 or 3 really tight (like i stop between each stitch and make sure it's very firm around the needle) and i haven't had a laddering problem. in fact, i think i have more ladders w/ the two circs method than with double pointeds because it's lot harder to get tight on two circs because you can't really keep the needles perpendicular to each other as easily when you get to the joins
Posted by: Carolyn on April 18, 2003 09:44 AM
I find the "knitting a few stitches onto the next needle" method works well for me. But every now and then one might choose to not do that (Lucy Neatby's "Fiesta Feet" socks come to mind). In that case, I've found that wrapping the yarn around the needle in the "wrong" direction on the last 2 stitches of needle 1 and the first 2 stitches on needle 2 helps. If you generally wrap counter-clockwise, try wrapping the other way. Uses less yarn and seems to close up that ladder nicely.
Color Knitting Questions
Q: Do you strand or float? or Do you weave or float? When you are knitting with more than one color, how do you enusre that the different strands of color don't get tangled?
A: My colors never get tangled because I float and never strand (weave). I used to weave. But no longer. Now I float, always. Even for long stretches, like ten stitches. As long as I make sure I've got my stitches spread out well on the needle while I knit, I have no problem with tension. I find that weaving sometimes shows on the right side. At least it does when I do it. When working with shetland wool, floats adhere to the back side of
the work with no problem, so you don't have a bunch of messy loops like you might think.
Q: What is the difference between floating and stranding (or weaving)?
A: Floating is carrying the unused color behind your work (or in front if purling) until needing it to knit again, whether it be one stitch or many.
Stranding is similar, but in this case, if you have more than stitches of the same color in a row to knit, at about the fifth stitch you would "catch" the unused yarn in your knit stitch so the float portion would be 5 stitches (or wherever you catch it). I believe this concept is used commonly in Norwegian knitting, for instance Dale of Norway sweaters, since they may have large color blocks. (Note: this answer was taken from the comments section.)
Q: When doing fair isles or multiple color sweaters, do you weave in all the yarn ends as you go or weave them in after you're done?
A: I don't weave, I knot!
Q: I am ready to learn two-color knitting. I'd like to do something simple first. What is a good first two-color project and where are good instructions how to do it?
A: Ah, sucking yet another victim into two-color knitting (insert evil laughter here)!
If you want to get your feet wet in two-color knitting, you might want to start with a two-color Norwegian design. That way you can get accustomed to two-color knitting but not have a lot of different colors to deal with. Start small, like with a hat. Dale of Norway has lots of hat designs in their pattern books, and I know that Bea Ellis has a bunch of really great hat kits on her site. And I'm sure there are a bunch of other places you can get small two-color projects too.
If you want to dive right in to fairisle, check out Sweaters From Camp, which is available from Schoolhouse Press. Lot's of great designs in there, and good instructions too.
Q. "When you write that you are working the sleeve from the top down, was that your own choice? All the instructions I have tell me to knit sleeves from the bottom up on 3 double pointed needles. I just finished a two-color baby sweater and the sleeves were not so pretty -- they turned out bumpy because of the increases and had 3 "lines" going up the sleeves where one needle ended and the next began (if that makes sense). It was a Norwegian sweater and had a facing at the end of the sleeve."
A. Traditionally, fair isles have sleeves that are made by picking up stitches around the steeked armhole and knitting in the round down to the cuff, decreasing as you go.
Dale of Norway sweaters have sleeves that are knitted in the round from the cuff up, increasing as you go. You then sew them into the armhole and sew the self-facing over the cut edge of the steek on the inside.
On a baby sweater, you normally can't knit the sleeves with a circular needle because the circumference of the sleeve is too small for the smallest length of circular needle. But you could knit it using two circulars, or by doing the trick of pulling out the loop of the cable of the circular needle while you work. What's that technique called? The Magic Loop?
Could you alter a sleeve up pattern to be knitted from the top down? Sure you could, and pretty easily, reversing the shaping. But there are a couple of things to remember. Dale steeks are simple two lines of machine stitching around the area where the armhole will be, then cut open. I'd be hesitant to pick up stitches around such a narrow steek. If you want to pick up stitches and knit down from the armhole, you might want to cast on extra stitches for a wider steek.
You also want to pay close attention to your row gauge before you change direction on a sleeve. Your instructions may tell you "increase 2 stitches every 4th round until you have 60 stitches, then work straight until the sleeve measures 8 inches." You need to know approximately how many inches of straight knitting is at the top of the sleeve after the last increase so that when you knit from the top down, you can knit "x" number of inches before starting your decreases, and end up with a sleeve of the proper length.
Make sense?
Q: What is the standard needle size and gauge for traditional fair isles?
A: In my admittedly limited experience, fair isles are knitted on size 3.0mm or 3.25mm needles with a gauge of 7 or 8 stitches to the inch using shetland jumperweight wool.
Q. How many stitches do you use for a steek?
A. 10 -- 1 edge stitch, 8 steek stitches, 1 edge stitch.
Q: What’s easier for a beginner to learn, Intarsia or Fair Isle? And is the somewhere that shows how to do them?
A: In my not-so-humble opinion, Fair Isle is much easier than intarsia. But then, that might because I have very rarely met an intarsia design that I liked.
If you want to get your feet wet in two-color knitting, you might want to start with a two-color Norwegian design. That way you can get accustomed to two-color knitting but not have a lot of different colors to deal with. Start small, like with a hat. Dale of Norway has lots of hat designs in their pattern books, and I know that Bea Ellis has a bunch of really great hat kits on her site. And I'm sure there are a bunch of other places you can get small two-color projects too.
Q. How do you hold yarns for fair isle knitting?
A. Some discussion of this in yesterday's comments. And requests for photos of how I hold my yarn.
I'd rather not, because I don't really think my method is a good one for anyone to emulate. Yes, I hold both colors in my left hand and throw with my left hand. And I consistently do the background color on top and the foreground color on the bottom. But sometimes I thrown the bottom color with my middle finger and sometimes I drop both colors and pick them up. I'm the poster child for how not to hold your colors. But it does seem to work for me, my tension is fine, and doesn't slow me down, so there you have it.
My colors never get tangled because I float -- never strand.
Q: Would you advise knitting arans in the round?
A: I was asked about the advisability of knitting Fulmar in the round. Yes, you could adapt the pattern to do that. But I wouldn't. The front of the smallest size of Fulmar is 236 stitches. Double that and you've got almost 500 stitches. More for the larger sizes. And heavy cabling. That's a heckuva big piece of knitting to haul around on your circular needle, especially when you get near the top.
Another reason why I prefer to knit arans in pieces is that the sewn seam adds stability to the finished piece. Even knitted in a fine gauge wool, this is a heavy sweater.
And the last reason is that having wrong side rows helps you keep track of the pattern. On the wrong side rows of arans, you generally just work straight across, knitting the knit stitches and purling the purl stitches. If you're always on the right side, which you are in the round, you have to remember more carefully where the non-patterning rows are.
Q. What would you suggest for a first Aran pattern?
A. Alice Starmore's Na Craga which is in her Aran Knitting book.
DPN/Sock Questions
Q. How do I keep the "line" that forms between my dpn's when knitting in the round on dpns ?"
Okay . . . um . . . don't hate me, but . . . um . . . I never get a line that forms between dpns.
But I do know what you mean -- that line of loose stitches that makes it obvious that you were knitting on dpns, right?
I can tell you this -- I do consciously tighten up on the first stitch on each dpn when knitting socks. I've also heard that using 5 instead of 4 dpns helps alleviate the problem -- I always use 5 dpns.
From the comments:
It's easy to avoid that "ladder"...You just have to knit a few of the stitches of the new needle to the old needle....
For example, you have 64 stitches, 16 per needle. You knit 17 stitches putting them all in the same needle (the first one of the second needle will then go on the first needle). Then you take your spare needle, and knit 16 stitches (or 17 if you like) and so on. That way, you never change needles in the same place, and you don't have a loose joint on top of another, forming that sort of ladder...
Posted by: Noemie on April 18, 2003 05:37 AM
Easy ladder solution : wash knitting ,whilst damp yank it about vertically and horizontally. Don't be afraid to be vigorous !Then pat & block to shape.As EZ said ''Time is a great evener''.
Posted by: Emma on April 18, 2003 05:42 AM
Another easy solution (easiest for me):
When you've knitted the stitches off one needle (and I also use 5 dpns), take the new empty needle, place it above the just-worked needle, and form a tent with the empty needle and the about-to-be-worked needle with the just-worked needle pointing through the front. In other words, instead of starting to knit with your empty needle underneath the just-worked needle, start to knit with it above. I hope that makes sense..it's so much easier to show than to explain.
Posted by: Cheryl on April 18, 2003 09:43 AM
i've always been told to make sure you pull the second stitch really tight on the next needle. i assume it's because pulling tight on the first one won't last if you're too loose on the next or something? anyway, i usually knit about the first 2 or 3 really tight (like i stop between each stitch and make sure it's very firm around the needle) and i haven't had a laddering problem. in fact, i think i have more ladders w/ the two circs method than with double pointeds because it's lot harder to get tight on two circs because you can't really keep the needles perpendicular to each other as easily when you get to the joins
Posted by: Carolyn on April 18, 2003 09:44 AM
I find the "knitting a few stitches onto the next needle" method works well for me. But every now and then one might choose to not do that (Lucy Neatby's "Fiesta Feet" socks come to mind). In that case, I've found that wrapping the yarn around the needle in the "wrong" direction on the last 2 stitches of needle 1 and the first 2 stitches on needle 2 helps. If you generally wrap counter-clockwise, try wrapping the other way. Uses less yarn and seems to close up that ladder nicely.
Color Knitting Questions
Q: Do you strand or float? or Do you weave or float? When you are knitting with more than one color, how do you enusre that the different strands of color don't get tangled?
A: My colors never get tangled because I float and never strand (weave). I used to weave. But no longer. Now I float, always. Even for long stretches, like ten stitches. As long as I make sure I've got my stitches spread out well on the needle while I knit, I have no problem with tension. I find that weaving sometimes shows on the right side. At least it does when I do it. When working with shetland wool, floats adhere to the back side of
the work with no problem, so you don't have a bunch of messy loops like you might think.
Q: What is the difference between floating and stranding (or weaving)?
A: Floating is carrying the unused color behind your work (or in front if purling) until needing it to knit again, whether it be one stitch or many.
Stranding is similar, but in this case, if you have more than stitches of the same color in a row to knit, at about the fifth stitch you would "catch" the unused yarn in your knit stitch so the float portion would be 5 stitches (or wherever you catch it). I believe this concept is used commonly in Norwegian knitting, for instance Dale of Norway sweaters, since they may have large color blocks. (Note: this answer was taken from the comments section.)
Q: When doing fair isles or multiple color sweaters, do you weave in all the yarn ends as you go or weave them in after you're done?
A: I don't weave, I knot!
Q: I am ready to learn two-color knitting. I'd like to do something simple first. What is a good first two-color project and where are good instructions how to do it?
A: Ah, sucking yet another victim into two-color knitting (insert evil laughter here)!
If you want to get your feet wet in two-color knitting, you might want to start with a two-color Norwegian design. That way you can get accustomed to two-color knitting but not have a lot of different colors to deal with. Start small, like with a hat. Dale of Norway has lots of hat designs in their pattern books, and I know that Bea Ellis has a bunch of really great hat kits on her site. And I'm sure there are a bunch of other places you can get small two-color projects too.
If you want to dive right in to fairisle, check out Sweaters From Camp, which is available from Schoolhouse Press. Lot's of great designs in there, and good instructions too.
Q. "When you write that you are working the sleeve from the top down, was that your own choice? All the instructions I have tell me to knit sleeves from the bottom up on 3 double pointed needles. I just finished a two-color baby sweater and the sleeves were not so pretty -- they turned out bumpy because of the increases and had 3 "lines" going up the sleeves where one needle ended and the next began (if that makes sense). It was a Norwegian sweater and had a facing at the end of the sleeve."
A. Traditionally, fair isles have sleeves that are made by picking up stitches around the steeked armhole and knitting in the round down to the cuff, decreasing as you go.
Dale of Norway sweaters have sleeves that are knitted in the round from the cuff up, increasing as you go. You then sew them into the armhole and sew the self-facing over the cut edge of the steek on the inside.
On a baby sweater, you normally can't knit the sleeves with a circular needle because the circumference of the sleeve is too small for the smallest length of circular needle. But you could knit it using two circulars, or by doing the trick of pulling out the loop of the cable of the circular needle while you work. What's that technique called? The Magic Loop?
Could you alter a sleeve up pattern to be knitted from the top down? Sure you could, and pretty easily, reversing the shaping. But there are a couple of things to remember. Dale steeks are simple two lines of machine stitching around the area where the armhole will be, then cut open. I'd be hesitant to pick up stitches around such a narrow steek. If you want to pick up stitches and knit down from the armhole, you might want to cast on extra stitches for a wider steek.
You also want to pay close attention to your row gauge before you change direction on a sleeve. Your instructions may tell you "increase 2 stitches every 4th round until you have 60 stitches, then work straight until the sleeve measures 8 inches." You need to know approximately how many inches of straight knitting is at the top of the sleeve after the last increase so that when you knit from the top down, you can knit "x" number of inches before starting your decreases, and end up with a sleeve of the proper length.
Make sense?
Q: What is the standard needle size and gauge for traditional fair isles?
A: In my admittedly limited experience, fair isles are knitted on size 3.0mm or 3.25mm needles with a gauge of 7 or 8 stitches to the inch using shetland jumperweight wool.
Q. How many stitches do you use for a steek?
A. 10 -- 1 edge stitch, 8 steek stitches, 1 edge stitch.
Q: What’s easier for a beginner to learn, Intarsia or Fair Isle? And is the somewhere that shows how to do them?
A: In my not-so-humble opinion, Fair Isle is much easier than intarsia. But then, that might because I have very rarely met an intarsia design that I liked.
If you want to get your feet wet in two-color knitting, you might want to start with a two-color Norwegian design. That way you can get accustomed to two-color knitting but not have a lot of different colors to deal with. Start small, like with a hat. Dale of Norway has lots of hat designs in their pattern books, and I know that Bea Ellis has a bunch of really great hat kits on her site. And I'm sure there are a bunch of other places you can get small two-color projects too.
Q. How do you hold yarns for fair isle knitting?
A. Some discussion of this in yesterday's comments. And requests for photos of how I hold my yarn.
I'd rather not, because I don't really think my method is a good one for anyone to emulate. Yes, I hold both colors in my left hand and throw with my left hand. And I consistently do the background color on top and the foreground color on the bottom. But sometimes I thrown the bottom color with my middle finger and sometimes I drop both colors and pick them up. I'm the poster child for how not to hold your colors. But it does seem to work for me, my tension is fine, and doesn't slow me down, so there you have it.
My colors never get tangled because I float -- never strand.
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