Knitlog [2026-04-08 Wed]

Tracery vest

My colourwork was awful for the first ten rows because I wasn’t paying lots of attention to it. At some point I finally realized the problem and started testing alternative ways of tensioning colourwork.

I’m using two handed fair isle method and it has been comfortable and quick for me. I tried holding two strands on right hand but couldn’t stand the slow speed so I’m back to two-handed. Two tips I found really helpful:

1. I watched few colourwork YouTube videos and trying to get some insights, most of them are useless but this video Episode 6.1: How to Knit Fair Isle with Two Hands - Tips for a Tidy Fair Isle Knitting - YouTube showed how to keep floats relaxed at the back, by stretching the stitches quite far away and pulling the working yarn almost straight at the same time.
2. I also noticed my floats look like long enough but the stitches are still puckered. I think it’s mostly because the stitches were stretched too big / too small when working the stitches from the other end of float (or the nearby stitches), so I pinched the just-worked stitch with my finger to keep it in place so it won’t get stretched.

After implementing these tips, I got the best colourwork result I’ve ever knitted! This is especially noticeable when comparing with the previous section when I didn’t control colourwork tension as much. I’m so so proud of myself!!