How To
Ask Patty: One More Jogless Join
[Dramatic voiceover] Previously on Jogless Join. When last we left our heroes, Patty revealed the awful truth—she had found a question she couldn’t answer. Actually, the really awful truth is that this happens all the time, and she just covers it well.
You see, it is often the question I can’t answer that nags at me until I figure it out. I remember years ago a knitter had taken my cast on and bind off class, and she liked learning casting on using long tail in pattern, and she liked learning German Twisted cast on, but she asked me if she could do German Twisted Cast on in pattern. I figured, why not, which prompted me to shoot this little video (it’s old, so the sound is not great). Or more recently, a knitter wrote to Ask Patty wanting a matching cast on to the Icelandic bind-off. I couldn’t find one, so I made one up.
“Get to the point,” I hear you saying. “What about the question you couldn’t answer?” Here we go.
One Stripe and You’re Out
Dear Patty,
I can’t seem to get rid of the gap on the jogless stripes and it’s driving me crazy! Yes I’m knitting in the round.
Why don’t the stripes meet? I know they won’t align perfectly, I just want them to meet.
Can you please help me, I’m about to pull my hair! Thank you, and hope to hear from you soon!
Griselda
currently raining on Griselda’s parade
Dear Griselda,
First and most important, forgive the delay in my answer. This one stumped me.
We all feel your pain. The dreaded single color stripe in the middle of a field of another color creates some unique challenges. When we do nothing, we get this:
My first instinct was to recommend you change the pattern to make it a two row stripe so you could use a row below jogless join, but that’s not what you asked.
The ingenious helix knitting wouldn’t work because it works only on three or more single row stripes that alternate in the same order.
But looking at those two techniques did give me an idea. Could I somehow combine what’s best about both of them? Could the old lead me to the new?
Helix knitting has the colors joining at different parts of the round. This means there is no carrying or twisting colors, and no stacking of joins. Good, but it is still creating a spiral, and what we really need is a closed ring.
Knitting into the row below forces what would have looked like a spiral into looking like a closed tube, but it’s done in the second round and we have no second round. But, what if we could knit into the row below of the single stripe.
“She’s stalling.” “She’s got nothing!” —Wait, give me a minute!
My first attempt was OK but not perfect. I tried completing the round, then slipping the first stitch of the new color from the left hand needle to the right hand needle and knitting into the row below to create a doubled stitch.
Not bad, but when I came back to this doubled stitch, it didn’t matter if I knit them together through the front loop or the back loop, I could still always spot the join. The bottom of it looked a bit twisted, and the stitch sort of leaned a bit.
Then I realized, if I’m putting something in reverse, why not make it ALL the way in reverse, like a movie playing backwards.
It may have taken me a while, but here’s what I came up with.
Meet the smooth as silk, truly invisible, no fuss, no muss, single row jogless join
Step 1: Slide your old color stitches from one needle to the other to move away from your end of round marker.
Step 2: Join your new color and knit one full round. Do not knit in the tail of this yarn! (Note the end of round of the new color is in a different spot than your old color.)
Step 3: Slip the first stitch of the new color knitwise from the left hand needle to the right hand needle. This will reverse the stitch mount.
Step 4: Cross the working yarn under the tail. (Note: this can be done before or after step 5.)
Step 5: With the tip of the left hand needle, enter back to front into the row below the slipped stitch.
Step 6: With your working yarn crossed under the tail, knit the row below stitch eastern, by wrapping the yarn over the needle instead of under it.
This will create a double eastern mounted stitch.
Step 7: Now slide your way back to the start of the old color to pick it up and start your next round. (Note: My left finger is pointing to the doubled blue stitch.)
Step 8: Return to knitting in the round with your original color, and when you come to that doubled stitch, knit them together through the back loop and give a little snug to the tails.
And there it is, a totally jogless, not leaning, not twisted stitch, single color stripe. The orange marker is my end of round, and the bulb safety pin is the end of round of the single color blue stripe.
Here’s a little video to help:
And here they all are in one glorious swatch: Helix knitting, 2 row jogless join, 1 row jogless join.
In class I often say, “Laziness is the mother of invention,” but in some cases, when it comes to a stumper let’s say, “Stubbornness is the mother of invention.”
Thanks for the challenge. Now I need a nap.
Patty in your Pocket
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Brilliant!
This is why I always refer to you as the genius knitologist. That’s what you are!
Awesome Patty!
Inventive!. I just don’t care enough about the little jog to go to all that trouble.
I so admire your brain!! Thank you.
Looking at your swatch made me wonder if you could use helix knitting with two strands of the same color and then the contrast color as your third strand. That way you are working a three row stripe sort of… two rows will be the same color.
Why aren’t you in the White House working on World Peace??
Some minds never cease to amaze me. Brilliant!
WOW!
All knitters bow to you!!
You are a genius!! Never fails to amaze me. My feeble brain could never work this out!!! Thank you!!
Hi Patty,
Your article came at just the right moment for me. I am making Isabell Kraemer’s Aldous, (https://ravel.me/aldous-2 as a gift), and the jog in the one-colour Latvian braid edging just before the sleeve cuff looks just horrible! I wonder if your work on jogless stripes applies to this situation?
You can use helix knitting with two colors, though. Elica Diamantifera, a sock pattern (ravelry link: https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/elica-diamantifera), does in order to have jogless single-color stripes. It doesn’t solve the problem you so cleverly solved here, but it does with two two colors of single-round stripes.
if you knit, you need to know Patty! This is so elegant I have go knit some circular stripes!
Ooh, exciting!
This is amazing and quite timely for me!
I used this technique and could not really see where I had joined the yarn, BUT I still had a jog at the BOR! Someone suggested slipping the first st on the next main color round, but instead I did one round in the MC and then worked as follows:
On stitch #1 of the 2nd rnd of MC:
Lift CC st from rnd below onto lefthand needle in front of MC st on needle. Knit these 2 sts tog with MC.
No jog.
I’ve tried this as written – it is great! – and I’ve also tried it without cutting my yarn or doing the “crossover” bit. It seems to have worked, but please test that on a swatch. I’m no Patty Lyons!
(The reason I wanted to carry my yarn is that I’m doing a two-colour stranded Norwegian design that has occasional single-row stripes.)
Opp, it didn’t work so well without crossing the yarn tails. There was no jog, but the stitch ended up a little wonky. I am no Patty!
Weaving in a few extra ends is worth it for the lovely smooth result.
I happened to find an old Techknitter blog article on a similar idea:
https://techknitting.blogspot.com/2016/10/smoothed-circles-jogless-join-for.html
that is really cool. Thank you for writing that up and for the video which really helped. I am completely baffled though about you slipping the green stitches. I don’t understand why you’re doing that. And I’m also a bit confused whether you’re then slipping forward or slipping back to get to the green yarn that is 6 stitches away. I have noticed that sometimes there is a column of strangeness when you switch colors in the same place. So I know you’re trying to avoid that. But somehow I find it confusing not to have a solid consistent starting point for new colors. Thank you!
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