I promise that this post isn’t just an excuse to post a few more photos of my Kaffe Fassett cowl, although that is a very happy side-product!
I realised as I was knitting this project that there are a couple of techniques that I’m using that others might find handy, so I thought I would share them: one now and one next week.
The first trick that I’m going to share works when you have discrete shapes in your stranded colourwork, and they are offset in bands. So in my Kaffe cowl the motif is a circle, and each band has the circles offset in comparison with the previous band. The chart motif looks something like this:
When that chart is repeated in the round, the first repeat in the round sits next to the last repeat in the round. This means that there is a jog in the circle that sits over the start of the round, and in your knitting it will appear something like this:
This jog isn’t a massive deal, so you could totally choose to embrace it as part of the beauty of knitting… but it’s also quite simple to totally eliminate it as follows:
At the end of each band of your motif, move the start of the round marker on by half a motif. In my Kaffe cowl there are plain rounds between each band of circles, so all I had to do was to knit half a motif worth of stitches at the end of the plain band. These extra stitches are almost impossible to spot, and far less obvious than the column of crooked circles.
This means adjusting so that your chart effectively looks like this:
If you work a half a repeat worth of stitches at the end of every band of circles (or whatever your motif is), then overall your project will look like this:
And voilà! The jog is eliminated and all of your circles are perfectly circle-y!
This tip is only relevant if you are knitting in the round. When working flat, the first chart with the semi-circles in the second band is all that is required.
Now if you don’t mind excusing me, I have a few more bands to knit before I think about blocking and joining the ends of my cowl… I’m going to be so sad to finish this project!
If you too would like to join me in gazing at your beautifully colourful Kaffe Fassett knitting, then grab a copy of Mason-Dixon Knitting Field Guide No. 13 Master Class and some Rowan Felted Tweed, and cast on!