For this month’s Confident Knitting project, we’re focussed on floats! Floats are the strands of yarn that run along the back of your work as you carry the yarn not in use until you need it again. If you’ve ever knitted colourwork that’s turned out a bit lumpy and bumpy, or that looks a bit loose and sloppy, it was probably down to the floats being too tight, in the first instance, or too loose, in the second. Even floats equal even, beautiful stranded colourwork!
‘Catching floats? That’s a breeze!’ Photo © Jesse Wild.
The question, of course, is how to achieve that evenness! And knowing when and how to catch floats is a crucial piece of the even colourwork puzzle. When you catch a float, you trap the strand you’re carrying, anchoring it to your knitted fabric. In this pair of video tutorials, I’ll delve into the factors to consider when deciding if you need to catch a float. What kind of thing are you knitting: an item that is liable to get fingers caught in strands, or something where the wrong side will be rarely felt? What type of yarn are you using: something woolly and fine, something heavy, something slinky? And how far is your float going to have to travel? There’s a balance to achieve. It can be hard to maintain an even tension with very, very long floats – you’re liable to leave them too loose or pull them too tight! But catching your yarn in super frequently can distort your knitted fabric!
You can catch floats without interrupting the flow of your knitting. Photo © Jesse Wild.
Ready to dive in, or float on, even? Choose your knitting adventure, based on how you manage your yarns in colourwork. Hold both your yarns in the right hand? Then here’s the one for you: Catching Floats with Both Yarns in the Right Hand (YouTube link)
Or maybe you hold one yarn in each hand when you knit colourwork, ‘picking’ the picking colour with the left hand and throwing the background colour with your right. In that case, you’ll want the Catching Floats Holding One Yarn In Each Hand video (YouTube link).
Both videos include instructions for catching in your pattern colour and your background colour without interrupting the flow of your knitting. I hope they give you the confidence to give catching floats a try!
If you hold both yarns in your left hand, then do watch either of our videos above, for the general information on when and why to catch your floats. But you may then find the following video from Voolenvine helpful. I tried really hard to look half-way competent holding both yarns in my left hand, but it was less than convincing, so this is a great alternative video: How to catch colourwork floats for both yarns held in the left hand (YouTub link).
As a final note on catching in floats, it’s important to say that, while I show you how to catch floats and tell you what you might want to consider about deciding when to do it, how frequently you catch floats also comes down to personal preference. So figure out what you like best, and catch confidently! Janette Budge’s beautiful design for this month, the Variance Hat, is a great place for working out what you like, with enough single stretches in a single colour that you can figure out how many stitches you can comfortably strand without catching in your float.
Janette Budge’s Variance Hat is a great opportunity to practice! Photo © Jesse Wild.
If you’re brushing up your float catching skills this month, we’d love to see you over in this month’s knitalong in our very own Knitalong Hub! Lots of fun and communal learning always takes place, and there are prizes, too! Any pattern that uses this month’s featured technique, catching floats, is welcome – no purchase is necessary to join. But if you would like to get the patterns from Confident Knitting, as well as the in-depth photo tutorials, you’ll find print + eBook or eBook only options in the online shop. When you purchase, you’ll get the three spring patterns released to date + photo tutorials straight to your inbox, and receive 9 more patterns + photo tutorials. We also have a limited number of Spring Kits available, with all the yarn you’ll need for the first three projects … and Summer Kits (yarn for the next three patterns) are also now on sale! Kits tend to go quickly, so we recommend ordering early to avoid disappointment! If you’ve purchased Confident Knitting, do check the May welcome pack before ordering your kits for a special discount!