The Knitting Fiend

Getting picky, even anal retentive, when knitting, is permitted. It may not be encouraged, but it’s permitted.

This is a follow up to my earlier discussion about “interesting” things that can happen with self patterning sock yarns.

So, on to another lesson about what can happen and how to control it. Today I’ll discuss why you may (or may not) want to attach a second ball of yarn when knitting the heel flap of a sock.

Look at the sock I knit cuff down, (photo top left.) Notice stripes repeat approximately every 8 or 12 rows on the “tubular” portions of the sock, particularly the foot. The exact number of rows between fuschia stripes varies, but if I’d kept knitting around and around using the self patterning “Clown” yarn I bought, you’d see the bands would always remain about this 8-12 rows apart. This is the way this yarn is designed to “self pattern”.

Now, I want you to notice something else. On one specific location on this sock, the distance between two fuschia stripes ended up short — 3 rounds.

Why did this happen? Well, I cast on 56 stitches to knit cuff down. I knit around and around and around in a tube. If I’d kept knitting around and around in a tube, the bands would have continued in a more-or-less systematic progression with fuschia stripes every 8 to 1 2 rounds.

But, I didn’t keep knitting around and around and around. Instead, when the sock got long enough, I put half the stitches on a stitch holder and began knitting back and forth to create a heel flap and later turn the heel. (I’ve outlined the flap and turn in blue.) Obviously, knitting these two parts of the sock used up some length of yarn, drawing from the “normal” color sequence in the yarn ball.

When I finished the heel turn, I then picked up stitches along the side of the heel flap and began to knit around and around, decreasing for the gusset.

Ok, so what happened to the colors sequence? If you look at the top of the sock, the last round knit before starting the heel flap was fuschia; the first round picked up on the edge of the heel flap was yellow/white. The yellow & white sequence is followed very quickly by a fuschia round.

This is “out of sequence” compared to the rest of the sock.

As a knitter, you may react one of three ways. Either you:

a) wouldn’t notice while knitting, would never notice and you’d just keep knitting,
b) notice and think that’s horrible! It means there will be a jarring discontinuity on the top of the sock. You would start asking people how to fix this horrifying color blemish! Or
c) notice but decide this is ok for a sock. Still, you would want to understand this so you can avoid this on other projects where it might matter.

I happen to fall in camp (c).

I’m not going to rip back my sock, but I want to understand this so I can plan my knitting to avoid something like this on a V-neck!

For now, I’ll tell you how to avoid it on a sock. (Likely as not, if you “get” how to avoid it on a sock, you’ll understand “why” it happened, and immediately “get” how to avoid the problem when working the two sides of a V-neck.)

Ok: How to avoid this discontinuity on the top of a sock!

If you want to top of the sock to have a “continuous” looking pattern, attach a second ball of yarn when you start knitting the heel flap. (You don’t need to break the first ball of yarn, just attach new ball of yarn. Let the old ball hang there and untwist every now and then if necessary. )

When you are finished knitting the hell flap and heel turn, break the second ball of yarn. Now, pick up stitches using the original ball of yarn. Then, knit using that original ball of yarn.

The color sequence on the top of the sock will remain continuous because the last round just before the heel flap and the first round after the heel turn fall in the same point in the color sequence.

Yippee!

Ok. But, few care that much when this is a sock. But, likely you do want both sides of a V-neck to look the same. So what if you were attaching a new ball to knit the second side of a V-neck?

To make the color sequence on both sides of a divided V neck match, you need to somehow or other, attach the second ball of yarn at the same point in the color sequence as the first ball of yarn. This generally involves unraveling yarn from a second skein and searching until you find the point in the color sequence that matches the color repeat on the first skein.

This is a small nuisance an wastes a small amount of yarn when the self patterning repeat sequence occurs over only a few rows. It’s a big nuisance and wastes a lot of yarn if the repeat sequence involves many, many rows. (Luckily, there are other things you can do to avoid wasting too much yarn, and likely as not, I will eventually discuss those. But, not until I have a good example!)

For now just remember: if you want the color pattern achieved with a self patterning yarn to be continuous, you need to make sure you attach new balls of yarn at the “same” point in the color sequence as the ball you just knit from.

Is it worth the extra work to make sure the color pattern is continous? Some say yes; some say no. I say decide for yourself!