Very few knitters like weaving in yarn tails. Definitely, not me. That’s why I am always on the lookout for ways to minimize the number of yarn tails in my knitting, like using the secure knot to join a new ball of yarn, or carrying the strands up the side of the work when knitting stripes back and forth.
For a long time, I couldn’t find a good way to carry the strands up when knitting stripes in the round.
The conventional method of twisting the strands at the back of the work in every two or three rounds has a few flaws – the section where the yarn is carried up is not as elastic as the rest of the fabric, the ridge formed by the twists could be quite bulky when we work with more than two colours, and the carried-up colours sometimes show on the right side of the work.
After quite a bit of experimenting, I found a way to avoid all these issues while carrying the yarn up in circular knitting.
It works in two simple steps. If you are a visual learner, watch these steps in a video tutorial:
STEP 1
In the first round of carrying up the yarn, work until you get to the last two stitches of the round.
Twist the yarn at the back of the work to the left, so that the unused strand (or strands if you are working with more than two colours) comes from the right side of the working yarn, over it and to the back of the strand.
Pick up the working yarn and finish the round.
If you change the colour of the yarn after this round, pick up the strand that you need to make the next stripe and use it to work the next round.
Because we twisted the strands at the end of this round, there will be no hole at the beginning of the round after we start to work in another colour.
STEP 2
In the second round of carrying up the yarn, work to the end of the round.
Then twist the strands just as we did in the first round of carrying up the yarn – move the unused strand(s) from the right, over the working yarn and to the back of it.
If you change the colour of the yarn after this round, cross the strands one more time and pick up the strand that you need to work the next round.
The fact that we call these rounds “first” and “second” doesn’t mean that we should work them in every round. In most cases, it is best to work one or two plain rounds between the “rounds of carrying yarn”.
The number of plain rounds depends on the width of the stripes you are making. It is better to time the rounds of carrying up the yarn so that we change the colour of the working yarn in one of those rounds.
If you are knitting stripes that are three, six or nine rounds wide, work two plain rounds between the rounds described in steps 1 and 2.
To make stripes that are formed over an even number of rounds, work one plain round between the rounds of carrying up the yarn.
For example, to make a stripe that is four rounds wide, work a plain round without twisting the strands in the first round after changing the colour, In round 2, work to two stitches before the end of the round and twist the strands as we did in step 1. In the third round, work another plain round, and then twist the strands at the end of the round (see step 2) in round 4.
When we repeat this four-round sequence, the carried-up strand looks like a zigzag at the back of the work.
This zigzag shape allows for more stretch keeping the fabric at the beginning of the round as elastic as the rest of the project.
It also spreads the twists dissolving the ridge and making it less bulky. Because of that, we can use this method to carry up several strands of yarn without sacrificing the comfort of our socks, hats, mitts or other seamless projects we decide to make.
Twisting the strands in the same direction is necessary to keep the unused strands from showing on the right side of the work, but it also leads to tangling. It is the only drawback of this method, but untwisting the balls of yarn once in a while is much better than ending up with dozens of yarn tails that we need to weave in.
SAVE IT FOR LATER:
This and 41 other in-depth tutorials are part of Knitting Collection #6.
