Carry Yarn for stripes

Stripes, don’t you love them? They can be spontaneous and playful. There is no need to plan too far ahead. In fact they are an excellent vehicle for adding variety to a longer project. Use up some of those bits in your stash, bonus.

It is usually necessary to carry the yarn not in use along one edge for stripes. This can cause a tightness along the carry edge. We want to avoid this in a shawl which will be blocked and stretched slightly. I used a really simple method of carrying the yarn along the top edge in this Magic Symmetry Shawl.

On the Right Side Row I knit the first stitch with both colours, in this case the grey and the navy.

Then I picked out the colour I needed to work the row (just drop the other colour) and worked across. On the next row, I worked to the last stitch and knit the two colours together as one stitch. It’s simple. It works. It gives you little blips of colour at the top edge. You can safely carry several colours along an edge this way.

I like the ease of execution.

I found myself still excited to knit one more Magic Symmetry Shawl (#3). Because I felt I was nearing the end of this particular obsession I dug into my stash for something a little thicker. I spent a lovely hour looking at all the possibilities. Decisions, decisions. I chose 2 100g balls of Estelle Worsted. The turquoise was a project that wasn’t working which I took apart. The navy was an single skein. I have no idea what I bought it for but I’m sure it was a good idea at the time. The small ball of grey was left over from some work socks. I thought it might come in handy.

I worked the Ditch Magic Rows.

I was not scientific about when to add in the stripes. I just felt like changing it up so I did. Who’s the boss of this shawl anyway? Me, me, me.

I worked 2 row stripes and ditches at the same time. It turned out that one ditch was grey and the next ditch was one of the blues. That was unexpected. I’m going to pretend that it was intentional and that I totally planned to do that the whole time, really I did, aren’t I clever, ha, ha?!

This Magic Symmetry Shawl is going to keep me warm while reading in the evening all winter.

Are you shawl knitting? Aren’t they the perfect summer knitting project? They must be because I just cast on another one with a new idea.

Deb

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Author: debgemmellmods

I'm a Knitter. The capital K means every day, everywhere. I'm co-owner of Cabin Fever with my sister Lyn. We have published over 100 patterns and 11 books. I'm also working on a new set of patterns for Any Gauge knitting. Dive into your stash and cast on for a Top Down sweater that fits, or an accessory to use up those odd balls of yarn. View all posts by debgemmellmods