Helical Stripes, or helical knitting, has got a huge variety of uses, the basic concept is that you change the colour every round but to avoid a jog you only knit to 3 stitches before the previous colour change.
I'm referring to the yarns as yarn A and yarn B. These may be two completely different colours or perhaps two dye lots or hand dyed yarns that you want to blend smoothly.
When you drop your yarn you will drop it in the place you are working, so if you are working on stockinette stitch you will drop it at the back of the work but if you are working in reverse stockinette stitch (as in Coiled Magenta) you will be dropping it at the front of the work.
How to work:
- Knit your first round with yarn A. Then drop yarn A.
- Working with yarn B, work to 3 stitches before your previous colour change.
- Drop yarn B.
- Slip 3 stitches purlwise and then pick up yarn A.
- With yarn A, work to 3 stitches before previous colour change.
- Drop yarn A.
- Slip 3 stitches purlwise and then pick up yarn B.
- Repeat steps 2-7 to create helical stripes.
The place you change the colour of your yarn keeps jogging back 3 stitches and one colour is 'chasing' the other one which means that you have no colour 'jog' or place where you have the yarn looping over itself. It's idea if you are working in the round and need to alternate 2 skeins of hand dyed yarn.
For a video of this technique you can view it here:
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