Starting a new little hat knitting project which is great for long car rides.
We were going camping. I needed a simple and small, knitting project for the two hour ride. I decided to use up some stash yarn and knit one more watch cap.
This pattern I used, for the third time, is the Ribbed Watch Cap and Beanie by Churchmouse Yarn & Teas. See the link to the pattern at the end of this page.
Because a small, size one needle is used, and there are many rows of 1×1 rib (knit one, purl one) this project can be a bit tedious, but it is just the thing for keeping hands busy. The completed hat is wonderfully wearable too.
“Saffron” Yummy 2-ply by Miss Babs & “Turtle Haven” from Four Purls are the colors
All I needed was some fingering yarn – found easily in my stash. I chose orange and a variegated blue, both are fingering weight and Superwash merino. I’ve had these balls for a while.
Once again I did the Old Norwegian cast-on and not the involved tubular cast-on suggested in the pattern. I needed to get this project started because it was the day before my camping trip. I kept the cast on easy.
Making the Yarn Change Invisible
This time I am using two different yarn colors and changing color on each row. I am using the “yarn forward” (YouTube video), by Elizabeth Smith Knits. I learned this skein / color change hack when alternating skeins for the Arco Iris sweater. It is very simple to do and leaves no weird little squiggles when changing yarn – which is very important on this hat because it is knit on the wrong side and turned inside out when finished! This yarn change is invisible on both sides.
Photos below show both sides of the hat where I am changing yarns at the BOR marker.
The yarn forward color change leaves no trace!
Camping Knit
Our campsite was on an island, and our site was directly on the saltwater river. Here I am doing some early morning knitting at the waters edge. Coffee, water view and knitting. What could be better?
Knitting at the edge of the river.
I know this will be an ongoing project that may take a while to finish, which is fine. Using two colors makes the knitting a bit more fun. I’m thinking that two very similar colors would work well. Maybe next time!
Learning to alternate skeins while knitting with variegated yarn in the round.
For the Arco Iris pullover I am knitting with yarn that needs to be alternated. This means knitting with a strand from one skein for one or two rows, then switching to a strand from another skein. (The pattern link is at the bottom of this post.)
You really should do this whenever you have yarn that is not evenly colored, such as hand-dyed yarns. The yarn in the photo below is from Miss Babs and it is very pretty, but not uniformly colored. This type of dying process creates pretty skeins. It is very popular with knitters because you get a solid color garment that has interesting shades.
However, if the skeins are not alternated, there could be an obvious color difference between them, and / or a pooling of colors.
Miss Babs “Kunlun” in Moss greenAlternating skeins while knitting flat
Color Pooling of Yarn
Yarn color pooling happens when the project being knit has just the right number of stitches to line the same yarn colors up over and over. My green yarn has subtle shading, but this could still happen. In fact Miss Babs made a note on my yarn receipt to alternate skeins. Thanks Babs!
Below is an example of color pooling when knitting. A pretty blue and white variegated yarn was used when I knit this pair of socks. Yes, they should have looked the same, but I had trouble with that faux cable design too and omitted it for one sock. If I had knit this pair correctly I should have divided my skein and alternated strands as I knit. These are socks. I didn’t really care. Now they are a good example of how pooling can effect a project.
Color pooling
Alternating Skeins While Knitting – Sounds Easy, Right?
A new lesson learned. Alternating skeins is not that easy. Well, it’s easy, but not easy to make it look right when you totally do it wrong!
I began alternating skeins from the beginning of this sweater project, BUT the knitting was done flat for the top part of this sweater. I simply carried the yarn up the side and switched strands as I went. Simple.
Then I knit the “V” neckline and I did not alternate skeins. There is some ribbing and cables there, so I didn’t need to.
After that, I had to begin knitting in the round. So I added a new skein, knit two rows (NO – don’t do this), swapped out the yarn and knit two more… and so on. This is how it looked.
Re-doing thisGoing bye-bye
Hideous!
After I did some knitting and alternating skeins, I saw that my carrying of yarn looked pretty awful. The carry line was uneven and also was puckering! I knew I would have to re-knit this area.
Now I needed to learn the correct way to do this. YouTube had some videos, and the one I found to be most helpful was where the yarn strands are brought forward when changing. (Video link below in “How To” section.)
Ripping Back and Starting Over
This yarn gives very clear stitch definition so finding the stitches in a row above the mistake was fairly easy. Here’s a pretty good video about picking up stitches to frog back a large chunk of knitting by Knitty Natty – which is what I did.
My knitting was done in the round and as I got close to the end, my needle pick up got tough. I got the last group of stitches with some yarn. By the way, you can use a much smaller size needle to pick up those stitches, as long as you being knitting again with the correct size.
I messed up a bit when adding my new skein (don’t ask me why), and therefore I have a little wonky place, but once I began the “yarn forward” technique, the rows looked much, much better.
Ripping back to knit this againSwapping yarn placement
How to Do the Yarn Forward Alternating Skeins Method
I have chosen to do the yarn forward swapping yarn on each round. Here’s how to do this method:
Pull the yarn you have been using to the front of the knitting and let it hang there.
Add the new yarn (for the first new skein round) by wrapping it around the needle as you would to begin knitting with any new skein.
Knit around using the new strand.
Once you arrive back to the place where the yarn is in front, swap it out. Yarn in front goes to the back and will now be used to knit the next round. Previous yarn used goes to the front and hangs.
Here is the best video I found that shows how to to do this.
Back / wrong side with yarn forward methodFront of fabric using the Yarn Forward method.
For me, this line of alternating yarns will run down the side of my project – beneath the arm of the sweater. It will not be noticeable and hopefully even less so once the sweater is washed and blocked. I forgot to do this (alternate skeins) for the first couple of inches. The arrows show where I added the new skein.
The other method of swapping out strands every row creates a line up the inside of the project, which is fine too. The Miss Babs video about Alternating Skeins for flat and round knitting, shows that method. (Watch the woman knit while she looks into the camera! Impressive.)
You must swap the yarn EVERY ROW for both methods (in the round).
I mistakenly began by knitting two rows before I swapped, and that should only be done for knitting flat (back and forth) where you must knit a second row to get back to the place where the yarn is waiting.
New Technique For Me
Although I have knit many sweaters, this is the first time I have used this technique. My attempt is not perfect because I watched too many videos and did not follow the good video directions, but I am not ripping back again.
Usually I knit with wool and I don’t have to swap out and alternate yarns. I prefer simple wool for knitting, but I wanted a pretty, variegated yarn for this sweater pattern.
New England's Narrow Road 