Getting stranded: Practice runs

I’ve been trying to get my stranded-knitting skills in swing.

A couple of weeks ago, I saw the Little Scallops hat pattern, and knew I had to try it. It’s a solid stranded-knitting starter. Just 5 rows of stranded colour work join the hat’s 2 colours – a veritable hands-tied-behind-your-back cakewalk for experienced stranded knitters, but a good introduction for newbies like me.

See those tiny bumps in the green scallop section? This is showing me that my tension is still a tad too tight, and is causing some puckering in the fabric. I need to work on loosening things up – stranded stitches need more room to ‘breathe’ than regular ones.

There are some relatively long (7-stitch) strands, or floats, in this pattern. I got to practice some float-catching, or weaving the longer strands back into the work…All in all, I’m happy with the hat and have been wearing it out on colder days.

Happy little floats, all woven in.

For some reason, my first stranding project ever fared slightly better than this hat. It was an attempt, in Winter 2016, at knitting the houndstooth textile pattern. I think the more pucker-less appearance of this knit is due to some steam-blocking with the iron which relaxed the tenser stitches a bit.

I learned how to catch floats late in the project. The first half has no float-catching (left). The second half, I finally got the idea (right). Float-catching builds little “hugs” into the work to prevent long, snag-able strands. They are a strand-saver!

On both practice runs above, I used a two-handed yarn-hold. It felt the most natural to me.

When I first taught myself to knit at 16, I ‘threw’ the yarn from my right hand – ‘throwing’ was the bold gesture I liked. It was what knitting was all about! When I re-started knitting in 2016, I learned Continental left-handed knitting. It felt a little faster to me, and I also liked engaging my usually dormant left-hand a bit more in my daily life. It’s been a bit of a circuitous path where yarn-holds are concerned, but this indecision turned out to be very good for easing into stranded colour work: I had a new-found left-handed ease, and re-learning a right-handed ‘throw’ brought back memories of those very first, very earnest, adolescent acrylic knits. 🙂

Past and present meet again.

That’s all on the stranded-knitting front for now. I’m keeping my eye on the prize: an Icelandic lopapeysa-inspired pullover.

Ok, time for more practice!