Very few knitters like weaving in yarn tails. Definitely, not me. That’s why I am always on the lookout for ways to minimize the number of yarn tails in my knitting, like using the secure knot to join a new ball of yarn, or carrying the strands up the side of the work when knitting stripes back and forth.
For a long time, I couldn’t find a good way to carry the strands up when knitting stripes in the round.
The conventional method of twisting the strands at the back of the work in every two or three rounds has a few flaws – the section where the yarn is carried up is not as elastic as the rest of the fabric, the ridge formed by the twists could be quite bulky when we work with more than two colours, and the carried-up colours sometimes show on the right side of the work.
After quite a bit of experimenting, I found a way to avoid all these issues while carrying the yarn up in circular knitting.
It works in two simple steps.
Twisting the strands in the same direction is necessary to keep the unused strands from showing on the right side of the work, but it also leads to tangling.
It is the only drawback of this method, but untwisting the balls of yarn once in a while is much better than ending up with dozens of yarn tails that we need to weave in.
To download a 6-page PDF with the step-by-step photo tutorial about this method, click here to join the All Tutorials Club 2022.
If you are already a member of the Club,
click here to download this PDF from the Club dashboard.
If you enjoyed this tutorial,
here’s something else you might find helpful:
“Neat Side Edges” Book
Learn twelve ways to make side edges of a knitted project nice and tidy. Plus, ways to fix side edges, and a way to improve edges of finished projects.
Happy knitting!
