Friendlier Fair Isle

Every once and a while, I come across a new technique that revolutionizes my knitting process. For example, since I started using spit-splicing and Russian joins, I spend significantly less time weaving in ends. My latest discovery has revolutionized the way I knit fair isle.

I was made aware of this technique after complaining on Ravelry about how fiddly my O.W.L. mittens are; I'm constantly having to twist the two yarns during long single-color runs. Ravelry member aj12ski pointed me to this video which demonstrates 2 new fair isle 'stitches' (stitches 3 and 4 in the video) that interlock the yarn without the fiddly twisting. Since I started using these 2 stitches halfway through my first O.W.L. mitten, I've had a lot less frustration.

I have no idea if this technique has a name, but it's definitely my new favorite thing for fair isle knitting. It's going to make my second O.W.L. mitten (and all my future fair isle projects) go much more smoothly. So if you do any stranded colorwork, I definitely recommend you check out the link above.

Kitchener Contortions

I don't know about you, but I kind of like using the Kitchener stitch to graft together the toes of knit socks. It's an easy technique once you fall into a rhythm, assuming of course that you're grafting stockinette. If you are grafting, say, a knit/purl textured cowl, it's a whole different story.

I made this link of a BFF Cowl as part of a swap among some friends on Ravelry. I sent this link off to a friend and received one of my own from a different friend (last photo below). The pattern was fun to knit for a swap but the seaming took some serious thinking. I feel pretty brilliant for making it all work out nicely, even though you can tell where the seam is.

The key to Kitchenering in a pattern is to have a good sense of the Kitchener stitch for stockinette. It roughly goes:

put darning needle through first stitch on front needle as if to knit, pull stitch off; put darning needle through next stitch on front needle as if to purl; put darning needle through first stitch on back needle as if to purl (as viewed from the front), pull stitch off; put darning needle through next stitch on back needle as if to knit  (as viewed from the front); repeat until end

I view the sequence as 'knit, purl, purl, knit', describing the way that the darning needle goes through each of the stitches.

Having reduced the stockinette Kitchener stitch down to 'knit, purl, purl, knit', it's really easy to modify it from here: you simply flip the darning needle's direction from this base pattern for all of the purl stitches you encounter (the order in which you work the stitches stays the same). So for the wrong side of stockinette, where everything is a purl stitch, you do the opposite of normal Kitchener with 'purl, knit, knit, purl'. And when grafting a [K1,P1] segment, where the second and fourth stitches in the seaming order are purls, the sequence becomes 'knit, knit, purl, purl'. A [P1,K1] segment would therefore be 'purl, purl, knit, knit'.

It's hard to explain it succinctly in words, but the basic idea is to flip the parts of the base 'knit, purl, purl, knit' sequence that correspond to the purl stitches in the set of four stitches current being seamed. The challenge is that the seaming sequence needles to be adjusted as you work across the pattern. I find it helpful to work out the sequence for only the current four stitches, work the grafting, then repeat the process for the next set of four stitches.

It takes some mental effort, but being able to graft in a pattern is highly rewarding.

Joins

It's been a fun week for getting together with knitters, starting in Chicago where I was at a conference for 4 days. My roommate for the trip and fellow conference attendee, Abby, was someone I'd met through Ravelry and messaged several times but never actually met in person. I know this sounds like a recipe for disaster, but it ended up being wonderful and by the end of the trip we were finishing each other's sentences.

The Chicago crew. Image courtesy of Abby, the knitter on the far left. Thanks Abby!

While in Chicago, Abby and I also got together with some members of the Harry Potter Knit/Crochet House Cup group from Ravelry. We started a Loopy Yarns (where I convinced Abby to knit her first Ysolda pattern, an Ishbel) and ended up eating Thai food and knitting together. It was wonderful to see everyone and catch up.

The Madison gathering. Image courtesy of Judith.

Once back in Madison, I met up with more knitters from the House Cup. (What can I say? We like get-togethers.) It's amazing how easy it to transition from hanging out with all of these people virtually to spending time together in person. I always enjoy it.

Russian Join in Progress

While at the Madison gathering, someone taught me how to Russian Join (a technique that joins two yarn ends together). How did I not know how to do this before?! You simply weave the yarn ends back into the working yarn, which creates a pair of loops that can be used to connect the two strands. In my opinion, Russian Joining is right up there with spit-splicing in miraculous-knitting-techniques-everyone-should-know and techniques-that-save-you-from-weaving-in-ends. I anticipate using Russian Joins extensively in my future knitting.

Finishing Handspun

As for many knitted objects, 'finishing' is the final step in creating handspun; finishing sets the twist and gives the yarn a finished look and feel. Since I wrote about the blocking process for handknits a while ago, I thought I should follow up with the process for finishing handspun.

This photo shows a recently handspun skein just after it came off of my spindle. You can tell that my yarn is not very smooth and still wants to twist a bit. This most likely results from residual twist in the yarn, which can be unevenly distributed throughout the skein

The first step in finishing handspun is the same as for finishing handknits: soaking. I fill up my bathroom sink with warm water and a generous squirt of Soak. I immerse my yarn in the water, being careful not to agitate it and thus felt it, and let everything sit for half an hour.

The next step is my favorite part of the cleaning process, which is unfortunately not pictured: thwacking. I do this either by holding one end of the skein and throwing the rest against the side of the tub, or by grabbing the skein at both ends and pulling tightly. Thwacking helps redistribute twist and even out the yarn, so I do it several times while holding the yarn in different places. Then I hang the skein over the tub, unweighted, to air dry.

That is the whole process! You can see from the finished result that the yarn is much smoother than it was at the beginning of this process. As long as you've done a fair job of balancing the twist during plying, this finishing process should smooth out any residual twist in your handspun.

The Short-row Shuffle

Like a lot of knitters, I was intimidated by the concept of short rows until I did them for the first time and realize that they are not that bad. I've since used them on an Elijah, my Vivian sweater, and my Lightweight Mountains Peaks shawl. They are really not that difficult and are quite helpful in certain situations.

You work short rows by knitting part of a row, anchoring the yarn, then turning the work around and knitting back to the start of the row. This effectively lengthens one side of your knitting more than another, which is useful in a variety of cases. For example, in the case of Elijah, short rows were used to shape the ears; for Vivian, they were used to raise the neckline in the back of the sweater; and in the lace shawl, short rows helped turn the corner of the edging.

The key to short rows in anchoring your working yarn. If you do not anchor, you end up with a little hole where you've basically created a hard edge where there shouldn't be one. You anchor the yarn by doing a wrap and turn (w+t): knit the desired number of stitches, slip the next stitch with yarn in back,bring yarn to front and turn the work (yarn is in back again after turning), slip that stitch again, then knit to the end of the row. Basically, you've wrapped the working yarn around an extra stitch to anchor the yarn to the fabric and avoid creating a hard edge.

The real confusion about short rows comes from what to do with that wrap when you next encounter it. Techknitter gives a nice run down of several options of what to do at this point, so I advise you to head over there for the best explanation. For the purpose of this blog post, I'll highlight what I do with wraps in garter stitch: I simply ignore them. The wraps look like purl bumps and blend seamlessly into the fabric.

If you want to learn short rows for the first time, I advise you to start in garter stitch, so you don't have to worry about hiding the wraps. I recommend making a pair of Garter Stitch Mitts (that's the pair I just finished, above), which is a cute free pattern that uses wrap and turns to do most of the shaping. Once you feel comfortable with the 'wrap and turns', it won't be any problem to tackle other short row methods that hide the wraps in fabrics like stockinette.

Observe and Report

Being a scientist by training, there is nothing I like better than to observe and quantify. For example, in a previous blog post I chronicled how blocking improved pair of fingerless mitts by defining the lace pattern as well as smoothing out the stockinette portions. It was a interesting study and I thought I should follow up on it by examining how blocking fares with another knitting technique, fair isle.


The photo above compares a fair-isle glove before and after blocking. I can see a slight difference between the two in the cuff area, but I am surprised that blocking did not do more to clean up my uneven pattern stitches. I will have to pay more attention to the evenness of my stitches the next time I'm working in fair isle.


That's not to say that blocking didn't do anything. It actually smoothed out the surface of the knitting so that all of the stitches lay flat and aren't bumpy. If only for this textural reason, I think it's worth blocking my future fair-isle projects. At the very least I will block my next fair-isle item because I want the second glove to match the first!

Blocking

I'm going to do a little aside today and evangelize the process of blocking. Blocking may sound complicate, but it's really the process of:

* soaking your knitting
* gently (!) squeezing out most of the water
* laying the piece out in the desired shape and size
* letting it air dry to set

This sequence of steps will even up your stitches and ensure that your garment is the correct size. Blocking is a vital finishing step for sweaters and lace, and can make a big difference in the finish of many other types of knitwear.


Don't be put off by my crazy photo above. Blocking is usually very simple, requiring nothing but a free portion of carpet. Besides the steps given above, here are a few tips for blocking:

* Most knitted items can simply be laid flat on the floor and left to dry.
* For sweaters, the important thing is to gently (!) coax the sweater to the desired size measurements before drying.
* Lace is perhaps the most complicated item to block. I like to use pins to really stretch the lace pattern to its limits while it dries.
* Blocking works best for non-synthetic yarns, such as wool, alpaca, and cotton.

You can see the effect of blocking on lace and stockinette in these before and after photos of my Veyla Mitts:



By stretching the lace section during the drying process, the you end up with a pattern that really pops. You can also see how my stitches in the stockinette section look more even after the blocking process. All of these changes are now set in the fabric until I wash it again, at which point I would need to reblock these mitts.

So I encourage you to give blocking a try, especially if you've never done it before. I'm sure that you will be pleased with the results!