The Knitters Bible8

C R E AT I V E OPTIONS

fair isle

Knit Perfect

Practse knitting with both hands. it really is the easiest and fastest way of worki ng.

If you find the Continental method too awkward. adapt it to suit yourself. For example. try holding the yam between the thumb and index finger

Gauge (tension)

It is important in either stranding or weaving in that the yam carried across the back is not pulled up too tightly. If it is, the knitted fabnc will pucker and not lie fiat Keep spreading the stitches out on the needle to maintain the correct gauge (tension).

Fair isle knitting is easier and faster if you can leam to use both the right and left hands to hołd the yams.To do this you must practise the unfamiliar techmque of either the English or Continental methods of knitting and purling (see page 16). If you find two-handed knitting awkward you can also hołd both yams in one hand (see right). If you find both of these methods difficult you can hołd only the workjng yam, letting it drop to pick up the new yam when you need to change colour but this is a very slow method of worki ng.

Stranding

The loops formed by carrying the yam between areas of colour are called floats.To get the floats to lie neatly and without lumps where the colours are changed and to prevent the yams from becoming twisted together and tangled. one colour always lies above the other on the wrong side of the work. By keeping the back of the work neat in this way, the stitches on the front of the work will lie fiat without puckering and without holes appearing between the colour changes. Never strand yams over morę than five stitches. In stranding one colour must afways be above the other on the back of the work. If they constantly change position, the fabric will be bulky and the yams will tangle.

1 When knitting with the right-hand colour, keep the left-hand colour below the needle and out of the way of the working yarn.

Using both hands

Hołd the most frequently used colour (usually the background colour) in the right hand and the second colour in the left hand (see page 16 for the position of hands and yams in the English and Continental methods). Whilst knitting. the right-hand colour crosses over the left-hand colour and it will always lie above the left-hand (second) colour.

2 When knitting with the left-hand colour, keep the right-hand colour above the needle.

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