Not happy... but I will be!

As you may have seen I have been working on a blanket in two-color knitting. Even though I know that I am supposed to add a fabric lining, I am not happy with the flimsy result and the back with all its loose threads, now that I am half ways.

I really wanted a pretty tight texture, much like the original at Pinnehobby, but I clearly misinterpreted the advice that is all over the net ("it is better to knit too loose than too tight") and  the back of the knitting is not at all nice.

First I started a small project, a small blue and white bag, to see if I could get the texture that I wanted. This time I tried needles that were undersized for the yarn. The result was not very much better than the blanket.



The white pattern does not stand out, and the feeling is that the knitting is still too loose.



It is a nice little bag, though, and I may use it in some way. Maybe to keep all my Mac-adapters.

Next I tried the correct needles for the yarn at a new little bag. I still knit very loose and the result was quite nice. Some of the stitches were a bit loose and the texture was still too soft, but the pattern showed nicely.

The back of the knitting was still pretty messy, though.

Next, I did two things. First I sent out a help me note on Facebook, to my Norwegian friends that are the experts on these things, and second I went googling. Internet knowledge to the rescue!

And I am so happy that I found this video first of all: The Two-handed Fair Isle Technique.

Just look at this wonderful woman, smiling, making it sound so easy. You just have to love her.

The technique is that you knit with one color in the American/British way with a strand over your right hand index finger, and the other color the European/continental way over the left hand index finger.

I immediately tried it out on another bag, still working a bit on the loose:



The different colors stand out OK, but not it was still not perfect. Whenever I knit more than two stitches in one of the colors, the other color was showing, as you can see in the photo below.



I kind of liked the ending, with the stripes though.



But then, at last, after having read a few tips from Norwegian and Swedish friends, I decided to forget that advice about not knitting too tight. I simply decided to go for lagom. Tight enough, loose enough. But much, much tighter than before.

And here's the result, just the texture I have been aiming for from the very beginning:



No second colors showing from the back. Yeyyyy!



And, as you can see, the back is almost as woven (the strand of white yarn at the bottom left of the picture is from the ball, not from the back of the project).

I simply love this way of knitting, and I may start over again with the blanket just to get it as tight as I originally wanted.

/Maia

PS. And I have learnt to knit the American/British way. That's fun!