Sunday, February 9, 2025

Working in LOTS of ends in Banner Knitting

Banner knitting (subject of the last post) is a constellation of tricks for efficiently knitting words on a plain background. It is worked with a color strand for every row, but no filler designs. With no filler designs to carry the yarn to the next round, the yarn has to end where the words do. This leaves a serious number of tails to work in, all of which end close together, both row-wise and column-wise.  So, that's today's topic--working in ALL those ends.

I start with two ideas. First, that you have worked your banner project in wool. This is because wool has many properties which make fastening down ends much easier. The second idea is that you have "parked" the ends on the fabric face as you went. If you did not park your ends, you can try these tricks anyway, but if you find they aren't working for you, all is not lost--it's not too late to park the ends even if you didn't do so at the time of knitting. 

Parking--a set-up method for working in lots of tails in Banner Knitting

To summarize briefly, parking means you temporarily "park" the color-ends on the front fabric face, usually done during the knitting process. No dangle = no tangle, meaning, parking prevents the tails from dangling on the back, where they'd be just waiting to tangle with the running yarn. Specifically, these tails are drawn to the front fabric face along one column, so the front and back look like the photos below. 

Click to enlarge. On this particular banner, the letters were all worked with two separated strands of yarn, so that each "tail" is actually composed of two strands of yarn. 

From a distance, the work-front looks like this. 

The ends emerge onto the front fabric face from the "parking columns"

Once the ends are parked,  and the main knitting over, the finishing process begins. Per the legend under the top photo, on this particular banner, each tail is actually composed of two splits of yarn held together. (How splits are madewhy knit with splits.) However, when it comes to working in the tails, each two-split tail is going to be worked in as a single end. In other words, in the photos and instructions below, both strands of any one tail are treated as if they were a single, unitary tail. 

Old school: working tails into the fabric



The old school method of working ends into a fabric works just fine. 

--Use a large, sharp-pointed large-eyed sewing ("chenille") needle. 
--Below▼both strands of one end (red arrow) have already been taken out of parking, brought to the back and worked in. 
--The tail next to be worked in (green) has been taken out of parking but has not yet been worked in: it waits its turn on the fabric back. The arrow is double-headed because, as stated above, the letter-stands were originally split, then knit as one yarn. Therefore, both strands are brought to the back where they are to be worked in as one strand, as you saw by red arrow.  
--The remaining strands (blue arrows) wait their turn, still parked on the fabric front.
--Yellow indicates the needle eye. 

Click to enlarge

The chenille needle is longer than the end to be worked in, so the needle must be "staged." You can see above ▲ that the needle is worked into the fabric before it is threaded. 

As shown further below ▼
--Staging means the needle is pushed into the fabric along the path in which the end is to go, until the eye (outlined in yellow + yellow arrow) is close to the (green arrow) end. 
--By staging, the (green) end now easily reaches the (yellow) eye--large black magnifying glass. 
--The needle merely skims through wisps along the back fabric--small orange magnifying glass. 
--If in doubt whether you've scooped up too much wisp, flip the fabric over to make sure the needle never reaches the front fabric face. If you can't see the needle from the front, you won't be able to see the worked-in tail, either. 
--As shown in the large magnifying glass, only perhaps a quarter of the tail is drawn through the eye. The loose loop remaining (green arrow) makes it easier to draw the needle through the wisps and prevents over-tightening the knit stitch from which the tail comes. Adjust tension afterwards.


Final result is shown ▼ below. "A" shows the ends before trimming, "B" after. Once the ends are trimmed, run a fingernail over them: fluffed up like this, they'll never pull loose. 

The old school method is excellent for banners, pillow tops and also to use where the fabric-back will be subject to wear, such as sayings and slogans worked on garments. 


One last thing: note that the ends are splayed out a little over the fabric back, meaning, only the very middle ones are worked into the row in which they were knit. The upper and lower radiate outwards. If you have room, splaying helps avoid distortion on the front fabric surface by spreading the strain along the fabric back.

Tacking

Another way of holding down parked ends is called tacking, and this comes in many variations. 

Base method, tacking, shown worked with with sewing thread

Tacking (also called freeform pinstiping) is a trick for fastening down long floats or ends. The base method is summarized in this little video below: this is tacking parked ends, demonstrated using sewing thread.

If video doesn't load, follow this link (click)                              ->: https://youtu.be/9ds5EczA8us
(sorry about the darn ads--You-tube puts those on there. Click "skip" asap) 


Variation: double thread tacking, ends left free


In this variation, the ends are double-tacked, meaning two lines of tacking were worked over the parked ends. After the ends are "unparked" by being pulled to the back, they were trimmed somewhat long, then fluffed up by running a fingernail over them. In this particular photo, the tails are left loose on the back. Double tacking with loose ends would be a good trick to use on a banner, where there is not going to be any wear or tension on the back or the front. For a pillow-cover (wear on front) or a garment (wear on front and back) this variation isn't the best choice. 

Variation: felting, with or without thread tacking


A few posts ago, I showed needle-felting as a means of controlling long floats. However, you can also felt ends. Felting ends would hold them onto to the fabric back.  The felting is worked from the front, meaning, plunging the felting needles through from the fabric front to the fabric back. As shown below, felting can be used as an adjunct to tacking. Try not to work right through the thread tacking, however, for fear of cutting the thread with a felting needle. In fact, since the front fabric face is basically unchanged by the needle felting process, you could work the thread tacking after felting the tails down. 


Felting alone might be strong enough for a banner (neither fabric face subject to wear). However, if you both felted and tacked, this ought to be strong enough for a pillow-back, and perhaps even for a garment--the ultimate strength of this method depends on the yarn used. 

Hairy, rustic, natural colored yarns in a heavier weight felts down better than smoother or highly-dyed yarns in a lighter weight. The Dale Hilo and Peer Gynt yarns from which this sample banner were knit are hairy long-staple Norwegian yarns, and the illustrated tack + felting is certainly secure enough for a garment when worked in yarns like this. 

However, your milage may vary: where your yarn falls on this spectrum between rustic and highly processed determines whether tacking plus felting would be strong enough to securely hold ends onto a garment (fabric-back subject to wear) or whether pillow-tops is the best use you can achieve (back gets no wear, but front does get wear). 

Variation: tacking with yarn


In this variation, the ends are tacked with yarn. I have written of this before at greater detail, but the short version is, you work in the same manner as the video on thread tacking, only instead of polyester sewing thread, you use a split of the background yarn to do the tacking. The advantage is how much more strongly this variation grips the ends: wool-to-wool is grippier than could be achieved with thread. The disadvantage is that it isn't as perfectly invisible on the fabric front as thread-tacking.  Nevertheless, even though it isn't perfectly invisible, experience strongly suggests that no one but you will ever notice it

See for yourself: here is a closeup of the same tacking from the front. 

Front view (I've darkened this photo to highlight the detail but it really is the front of the above photo, despite the apparent color difference).
Click here for peek-a-boo

The photos shows straight-up yarn tacking, but you could, of course, combine this with a bit of needle felting for an even grippier hold. Yarn-tacking + felting is strong enough even for a garment back, where wear is to be expected. In this variation, there is no problem about felting right through the wool tacking. 

Tacking plus "work-back"

In this variation, the tails are doubled back on themselves and worked back in the way they came. This trick is especially slick worked over a double thread tack line. It can be worked with a tiny latch hook called a "knit picker," as shown, or with a chenille needle via staging, as shown earlier

Click to enlarge

The idea is that tail (blue circle) folds back on itself over the outer line of tacking (green arrow). Doubled back like this, it is caught under the inner line of tacking (yellow arrow) then worked back into the actual strand from which it came. The red arrow shows the path over the outer tacking and under the inner. In the above photo, the lower tails have been worked back, while the upper tails wait their turn. 

Again, as with the old school method, only the very end of the tail is caught and drawn through, thus leaving a loop, the tension being adjusted afterwards by gently tugging on the tail. Adjusting the tension in two stages like this prevents the work-back from tugging on the line of tacking, which would distort the fabric surface. Note that the fold-over isn't drawn tight up to the tacking, but allowed to fold over some small distance away. 

This "work-back" variation on tacking is extremely sturdy, fit for use on garments. It will hold in the slickest, most highly processed woolen yarns. Once steam blocked and given a few pokes with felting needles, the fold itself is induced to lay flat. 

Tacking, with ends hidden under a nearby steek

In the previous post about banner knitting, I said that it was best worked by combining working in the round with steeking. Several readers on Ravelry asked why I did not mention working flat (back-and-forth) as an alternative. The fact is, having a steek is actually an advantage for banner knitting. In places where the words end near the edge of the banner --which could be all the words, depending on design -- the steek provides a great spot to hide the ends. In this photo, the ends were tacked down with a double row of thread. The steek has been felted down using needle felting. Then, the ends were drawn, one-by one under the flap of the steek, using a staged sewing needle as shown above. 



Hiding ends under the flap of a steek would work great for a banner or a pillow top, but not really for a garment: a steeked garment would have very thick seams

Geek note: the type of steek shown above is called a "double fold back steek" and features no cut ends showing. It will be the subject of the very next post.
 

Holding down ends in the fold made by picking up stitches for the border

Similar in concept to the idea of hiding ends in the steek, this trick traps ends behind border stitches picked up along the banner-edge. The steek is cut after the border stitches are picked up, because the way in which the border stitches are picked up makes the flap of the steek bend back sharply. 

It works best where there is only a narrow margin of background stitches between the beginning / end of the words and where a picked up border is planned. In this situation, arrange for the tails to be parked on the surface one column OUTSIDE where this border is to begin. 

For example, on this banner, the letter "E" ends 4 columns from where the tails were parked, and the border will start 3 columns from the edge of the letter. Using a crochet hook, and holding a length of background yarn BEHIND the work, draw up loops from this length sideways through the third column.

In this banner, the letter "E" ends 4 columns from where the tails were parked, and the border will start 3 columns from the edge of the letter. The stitches are picked up sideways through the fourth column, as shown.


In one stroke you have fastened down the tails on the back as well as picked up the stitches on which to knit the border. Thereafter, transfer the loops to a knitting needle in preparation to knit on a border.

Left: close up front view of stitches picked up on crochet hook
Right: back view of picked up stitches tacking down the tails
In one stroke you have tacked the tails and picked up the stitches for the border

The stitches are picked up at a 1:1 ratio, meaning, each stitch in the column (row-end) gets a stitch picked up through it. However, as you know, row gauge (vertical) and stitch gauge (horizontal) are rarely the same: the row gauge is almost always greater (more stitches/inch) than the stitch gauge. In this banner, there were 5 stitches/inch, but 7 rows per inch. Therefore, in the first round of knitting, decrease as required to match the row gauge to the stitch gauge. On this banner, before applying the edging, I k2tog'd two stitches in every five along the row ends to reduce the 7 st/inch pick up to 5 st/in, the correct gauge for knitting the border. This post on picking up stitches has more details. On this particular banner, a red I-cord edging was worked on the white picked up stitches. 



Picking up for the border forces a fold in the back fabric, so that the excess flaps from the steeking, as well as the ends, all fold backwards. Folded back like this, the tails and excess fabric are will never show from the front, particularly after the edging has been worked. 

The ends were drawn to the back fabric face after they were tacked. The excess borders from the steeking fold over to hide them. The steeked flaps are held down by needle-felting them in place.  Here is a photo of the back,


Geek note: No cut ends show at the edge of the steek flap. Again, the very next post will be about this kind of steek, which is called a double fold back steek.

Fusible interfacing 

Interfacing was originally a stiffening material meant to be caught between two layers of fabric for structural purposes, hence the "inter" part of the name. However, fusible technology changed the game so that today, in certain circumstances, interfacing can be used directly as a backing rather than as a sandwiched-in stiffener. This is a heat activated item: as you iron it on, the adhesive on the back melts (fuses) the interfacing to the back of a fabric. 

Fusible interfacing used as an exposed patch is fragile because the heat-activated glue does not hold tight along the edges. Inside a sweater, the corners would curl up and the whole patch would peel off after a while. If you really want to use interfacing on the inside of a garment, you can go old-fashioned and sew down edges of the interfacing patch--before fusible technology, all interfacing was sewn down (or at least, sewn into the seams). At any rate, a fusible interfacing patch sewn down along its edges will not peel up inside a garment.  For a banner or cushion top, there is no wear on the back. Therefore, fusible interfacing is a good choice for these, no sewing required. Just make sure the interfacing extends a good way past the edges of the tails so the more fragile edge of the interfacing isn't just along an edge where tails would push on it, as shown below.


Best practices to tack the ends before fusing on the interfacing, and that was done on the above example.  See, once the interfacing is fused, the tails can't be further adjusted. If a loose (not tacked) end acts up during fusing, oopsie, there's a permanent loop on the fabric surface. So, tack, adjust the ends and then iron, carefully fusing into place through a pressing cloth. (Pressing cloth = a flour-sack type kitchen towel which helps distribute the heat and prevents scorching.) Start with a low heat setting, upping the heat slowly until you've found the lowest level at which the iron will activate the heat-sensitive glue. 

Another thing about the glue. Often it is applied in little dots, which are easy to see: you put the dotted side down. But, sometimes, the glue is sprayed on in an even layer. In that case, make sure you know which is the glue side before starting, so you don't fuse the interfacing to your iron, instead of the knitting! Ironing a scrap of interfacing between two paper towels reveals which side goes down. 

Fusible interfacing comes in all weights. If you want your knitting to remain stretchy and flexible, buy thinner, most flexible interfacing. Conversely, in a cushion top, you might not consider knitting's stretchy nature much of a plus. The same might be true of a larger wall hanging which might sag. For a stiffer less stretchy finished project, it is possible to fuse the entire back of your project with a much heavier item called fleece interfacing. This stuff is not archival--in fact NO fusible interfacing of any weight is archival, so I wouldn't do this on a family-heirloom type item. However, for everyday use like a sofa cushion, this is a good trick. That's what was done with this crossword-puzzle knit, a cushion-face project which, similar to banner knitting, features long floats and narrow lines. 

Again: to hold all the ends in place before fusing, best practice is to tack first and trim the ends. But sometimes, well! You might be tempted to use this stuff without first tacking the ends. And, truthfully, you could. As long as the edges of the interfacing extend far beyond the tails, it does have good sticking power. For an experiment I fused down an absolute rat's nest of tails from three-color picture knitting and voilà! In a few seconds all the tails were fastened down and the project done. 

A rat's nest of red, orange and yellow ends, fused down.

A "quick and dirty" approach for the back of a banner or even a cushion top. (I won't tell if you don't!) But *don't* try this inside a garment--the lumpy mess left behind would be uncomfortable, even supposing you could get the patch to stick in place and not peel off. And this sort of dodge really isn't for an item which will be washed very often, either. 

Looping and knotting: "two-part floats" avoid ends altogether


This is a trick to avoid ends altogether by knotting two sets of adjoining ends into a single float, spanning from one word to another.  It is useful where two different colors of yarn come together on the fabric back, such as where two different-colored words adjoin. This was covered fully in the previous post, together with other methods of dealing with floats (as opposed to ends). I just mention this particular trick here again because turning ends into floats also comes under the heading of dealing with ends. And, like all floats, these "two part floats" can be tacked down--here is a view where wool tacking was used. 



This trick is more for banners and, perhaps, pillow-covers. On a garment, those knots would surely find some way of rising to the surface. 

Lining


Along with every method above, there's one more optional finishing step for your banner. If you want everything neat and tidy from back view, then for a professional look, sew on a lining. Here is a banner back with polar fleece lining sewn on using the overcast stitch



_____

So there you have it--tricks for dealing with all the ends generated by banner knitting--a few variations and methods. Hope one or another will suit you. 
 _____

Next time, the subject is a new kind of steek called a "double fold back." It's a neat and handy steek for the back of a banner or a cushion top. Until then, good knitting!

--TK
Questions? Feedback? Contact me at 
Blue Sky  @techknitter.bsky.social or  

Sunday, January 19, 2025

Knitting in a world on fire
how to knit banners
with tricks for words & letters

Knitting in a world on fire COPYRIGHT TECHknitting

Knitting words and letters is today's topic.  In a world on fire, banners have historically announced one's view on things, and, fair warning! I'm stating my political beliefs below

Obviously, politics aren't strictly necessary: a common example of banner-knitting is putting names on Christmas stockings. 

The top part of this post is technical, but you have been warned! The bottom part is, indeed, political.

What exactly is banner knitting?

Banner knitting is a constellation of tricks for knitting writing. Technically, it is a specialized form of knitting words, letters, or other thin designs, where narrow columns, curves and diagonals are set against a plain background, like words on a banner. With a plain background, there are no filler designs to carry the yarn past the end of the words, so the color knitting ends where the words do. 

All the rules for color-knitting apply to banner-knitting, but additional tricks smooth the fabric and balance the appearance of different colors between the words and the background--solving a problem sometimes called "color dominance" thus making words more legible. Also, banner-knitting employs special tricks for dealing with the tremendous number of tails generated while knitting, all coming to an end nearby one another. 

No longer are sayings restricted to cross stitch or embroidery. With these tricks, your words can efficiently be knitted, as well. 

So, what are these tricks?


Use wool

On a microscopic level wool is scaly and hairy. Two layers of wool held near one another will velcro together as the scales catch one another like barbs on a fish hook (and this can be encouraged by needle felting). Banner knitting has floats on the back, so the scales of wool help the floats and fabric surface nestle tight. Other fibers doesn't offer these advantages. Superwash wool is specifically treated to smooth the barbs, while non-wool fibers have no scales or barbs in the first place. Therefore, choose non-superwash wool for best results in banner-knitting.

Steeking

Purling back in color when knitting flat is quite the trick. Even working a front-side row, where you can see what every stitch is doing, it is challenging enough  to maintain tension while wrangling 2-color knitting. Purling back on a project ups that challenge significantly. It can be done. However, ordinary mortals such as myself usually choose to make life easier by working color knitting in the round. Each cc stitch can be seen as it is applied, and background puckering becomes immediately evident. For garments (hats, sweaters) knitting in the round is no problem. For flat objects (banners, pillow tops) this means steeking. So for flat work knit in-the-round, plan to leave plenty of stitches for the steek itself when laying out your design. 

Regarding steek how-to, the post just before this one showed how to needle-felt a steek, and a post coming up soon will show a different method of steeking called "double fold-back." Stay tuned.

Even tension 

A basic requirement is to knit the contrast color (cc) stitches of each letter to the same tension as the background so there's no puckering. How to knit evenly in color is a whole topic in itself and one to master before starting on banner knitting: links to some  tricks and hints. Yet, while  knitting evenly is  the basis for success, there is more.

Relative Yarn weight 

Contrast color (cc) yarn for words should be of at least the same weight as the main color (mc) of the background. But better is a cc yarn in a slightly heavier weight. You may have come across yarns described as being in the same weight category, yet one is thinner than the other. You would use the heavier for the words and the thinner for the background. 

The white yarn (Cascade 220) in noticeably thinner than the red (Pattons Classic). Both yarns are technically capable of being knit at 5 st/in. Yet in these two particular balls, the weight difference means cc red words (heavier yarn) on an mc white background (thinner yarn) would more legible than white words on red.

Splitting yarn 

Luckily, comparative anatomy among the yarn balls is not actually required to achieve this subtle weight difference. Instead, you can actually thicken and fluff up a cc yarn, even if it the same weight as the background yarn. This is done by splitting yarn into its component plies. When split plies are rejoined, the rejoined yarn is fluffier than before splitting. The letters are then knit with the splits both held together as one yarn, while the background is knit with unspilt yarn.

An example of how this works. The banner above is knit in 4-ply Norwegian long-staple DK wool (Peer Gynt and some old balls of Dale Garn Heilo). The light background is knit with yarn as it comes from the ball. But, the colorful letters are knit from yarn split and then rejoined. Specifically, the letter-yarn was divided into two 2-ply splits. Then, the two splits were held together and knit simultaneously, as if they were one yarn.  (Lower, there is a photo showing this.)

Two splits held together are fluffier than an unspilt yarn of the same weight, assuring that single cc stitches don't sink into the background to get lost. Yet, as the split yarn passes through the background fabric on its way to becoming a float across the back, the splits compress together to their original weight. In this way, splitting yields a fluffier yarn on the surface, yet doesn't affect tension or distort the fabric it passes through. 

Another advantage: splitting allows creating more colors by mixing. If you enlarge the banner-photo at the top of this post, every word in this banner has at least a few rows of color mixes. Another example from a different banner: in this letter "B," there are lots of color mixes to create an ombré effect.

Ombré created by working rows in different color splits. Where there is only one color, two splits of that color were used.

To be clear, ALL the word-stitches were knit with two splits held together: even the rows of pure colors. Otherwise, the the cc stitches would not be the same size. It's just that in mixes, two splits of different colors were held together, whereas in the pure colors, the two splits are the same color. 

A further advantage: as sketched below, splitting lets you loop together shorter lengths of yarn without having to splice them. Even if one ends up on the fabric surface, a loop-joint is pretty near invisible, so this trick lets you easily piece two shorter strands into one longer. 

looping shorter splits together instead of splicing

Looping is also the basis for two-part floats, discussed further, below.


Direction of knitting: V's up or down

For banner knitting, you can graph out words using free-handed letters, or use alphabet samplers. Problem is, graphs and samplers are laid out in little squares. Yet, as you know, stockinette stitches are little "v's," like downwards ▼ arrows. Sometimes, letters look better if the v's point up ▲ instead. Consider flipping your chart 180 degrees so the letters are upside down on the graph paper, then knitting words from top down. Below are some letters knit this way, a "Y," and another look at the "B" from above. 

In swatching, I liked how the upwards v's made a more graceful line on descending tails, and added little spiked helmets like "pickelhaube" as decorations above the line. 

Knitting smooth and even letters

Years of experimenting with narrow columns and diagonals yield two rules I rigidly follow: "lifting" and "continuous coverage."

Lifting over avoids "color dominance." First rule is, each yarn to be knit must be brought OVER the yarn already knit. When you go to knit a cc stitch, that yarn is lifted over the previous background stitch. Similarly, the yarn for a background stitch is lifted over the previous cc stitch. In this way, every stitch change starts off slightly raised on its leading edge, where the new yarn enters the fabric front face over the bump of the yarn not in use. 

This is another way of saying that "color dominance" has no place in banner-knitting: by lifting each yarn over the previous, both yarns are equally dominant. This consistency prevents contrast stitches sinking into the background or vice versa. 

The blue cc yarn has been lifted over the white background yarn. The next stitch will be knit with the blue cc yarn.

Note also how the blue cc yarn is composed of two 2-ply splits, held together and worked as one yarn, while the white background yarn is knit just as it comes out of the ball.

Lifting over is tedious. For one thing, you cannot knit "two handed," or even with a "fingerhut" yarn guide, as you might work ordinary color-knitting. Instead, you must continuously drop and pick up the new yarn.

In ordinary two-color knitting, lifting causes a further problem as well: it makes an awful tangle of the yarn as each pick-up winds each yarn further around the other. Yet, this turns out not be be much of a problem in banner knitting. 

Recall that there are no designs past where the writing ends. This means you need knit with strands only long enough to span across the words + tails: fairly short strands, really. Therefore, the easiest way is to cut each cc strand to approximately the correct length before the knitting of that row starts--experimentation will soon show you the length to cut. Now the cc is a loose strand, rather than being knit from a ball or bobbin. A loose strand untangles by simply pulling it out of the resulting bird's nest. Frequently pulling loose the cc strand makes lifting much easier that it first seems it would be. Still tedious, but not awful.

Continuous coverage with cc yarn across the fabric back

 A second rule for successfully knitting narrow columns is to apply the yarn in continuous rows across the fabric, spanning the width of the writing. This is easiest to see from this back view, where the floats march away in even bands across the back.

...floats march away in even bands across the back.

It may be tempting to break the rule of continuous coverage to knit with some strand of yarn which happens to be dangling off the fabric-back in just the right place. And truly, for something like dotting  an "i'" (red circle) that would make sense. It may be tempting to double the yarn back and knit with its tail. And, perhaps, for the descending stem of a letter like "y" that would make sense too. But overall, the way to knit smooth letters is when the stitches in each row are applied with their own strands of yarn all the way along, all in the same direction, knit sequentially and lifted over: smooth bands of cc yarn spanning the fabric back continuously from one end of the writing to the other.

The combination of lifting and continuous coverage assures that each stitch enters and exits the fabric face at same angle and same direction, and with no yarn dominating -- important factors where the cc yarn rises to the surface in narrow columns, often only one stitch wide. 


Parking  

Using short-ish loose strands in continuous coverage makes for smooth letters, but the price is a lot of ends. Letting all those ends dangle on the fabric back during the knitting process makes an awful mess, unpleasant to knit. Therefore, a good trick is to temporarily park them on the fabric surface by holding them in a "parking column" to the fabric front. 

Below you see ends parked on the fabric surface as a banner is being knit. Some of the ends have already been worked in, (the words "on" and "FIRE,") while some remain on the surface awaiting their turn. For example, the tail ends of the blue strands used to knit the word "knitting" are parked several columns before and after the letters of that word, and where they rise to the surface, that is the parking column. As is evident, to knit the lower loop of the "g" with continuous coverage meant using quite short strands, as also for the upper parts of the "t's."  Similarly, continuous coverage for the tops of the letters "l" and "d" in the word "world" yields short strands parked on the surface three columns from where those letter-tops project above the lower-laying letters. 

The many ends controlled by being drawn to the surface in "parking columns."

In this closeup, the fabric is rotated clockwise (left side up) showing how parking results in a neat back, with the tails kept out of the way until it is time to fasten them down.

...neat bands of contrast colors marching across the back, one per row, with the tails pulled to the front fabric surface along a "parking column" located several stitches away from the beginning or end of the word

It's not just the fabric back that's neater, either. Because the tails are parked on the surface, it's easy to adjust the tension of stitches in first and last columns by tugging gently on the corresponding tail where it emerges. As you knit, it pays to periodically go back and adjust stitches which are obviously working loose. This begins the process of settling the stitches into their proper places before they have a chance to kink into a larger, looser shape. 

As to the how-to, there are two ways to park a cc strand at the beginning of a row. 

  • When you first come to the parking-column, stop and insert the cc yarn, then knit the last few mc stitches, then commence with the cc. 
  • Alternatively, let the cc tail dangle initially, then draw the tail to the surface in the parking-column after you've anchored the yarn by knitting a few cc stitches. 

Either way, you have to stop and park the cc strand between stitches of the mc background in the parking column, but with after-pulling you'll also need a crochet- or latch-hook.

Tails at row-end offer the same options.

  • Park as you pass the ending parking-column.
  • Alternatively, let the cc strand dangle temporarily, knit in background color a for a few stitches past the parking-column, then afterwards park the dangling cc end on the fabric surface by using a crochet hook to draw it through the parking-column.

One advantage to after-pulling is the opportunity to divert tails to a different row than the one in which they were knit, thus parking them out of the way of other tails ending nearby. 

Floats and float-tricks

Ends are not the only loose strands of yarn to deal with in banner knitting. There are also floats, and these can get quite long between words, or even between letters which face away from one another. There are two main ways to deal with floats, either as-you-go, or afterwards in the finishing process.

As-you go float control: Ladderback jacquard, STUART technique

Some knitters choose to twist together the main yarn and the cc yarn every few stitches along the length of the float. This trick certainly holds down the floats, but ups the probability of color-blips on the surface. The greater the contrast between the main and cc yarns, the more likely blips are to show. For this reason, interrupting a float half-way to wind it around the mc is not my favorite way to control long floats.

If you prefer to deal with long floats as-you-go, a better option is ladderback jacquard, and there are many ways of working this. My own take on ladderback is called STUART, which stands for "Slip Then Unhook And Rehook Twice." Because there is a whole post about this trick, I won't repeat all that here, but just show an example from the "world on fire" banner--here is that banner again for reference.

Knitting in a world on fire COPYRIGHT TECHknitting

This ladderback is worked on the back of the letter "F" of the word "FIRE," bottom line of the banner. Some floats in this spot reach as far as 18 stitches. 


Controlling floats afterwards

One defining feature of banner-knitting is the tremendous number of ends which have to be worked in. This means there is a great deal of finishing to do. Because there is so much finishing, an alternative to as-you-go float control is to simply knit the floats loose and long, then deal with them, too, as part of the finishing process.

Tacking

A good trick for controlling long floats in the finishing process is called "tacking." I have already written about tacking, as well as the truly invisible variant of tacking, worked using sewing thread. Because the thread variation is, literally, invisible on the fabric front, I can only show the results on the fabric back.

Tacking with sewing thread--long floats between "I" and "R"

As you can imagine, tacking also works handsomely for dealing with ends, and there will be even more about tacking (including a video) in the very next post, a post devoted to a dozen ways of dealing with ends. 


.Two-part Floats

Another trick with floats is to knot and loop together ends. I call this trick "two-part floats," because it turns two sets of ends into one set of floats. In the "fire" banner, I used this where words of two different colors come together, such as between the phrases "in a" (green) and the word "world" (brown-gold). I could have worked these strands in as parked ends. However, these words are very close, so there would be many ends to deal with over a short a stretch of background fabric. Therefore, I thought knotting the ends into two-part floats the better option. 

It is a maxim of knitting that knots in garments are rarely a good choice because they create hard bumps, they want to come loose, and they want to work their way to the fabric surface. So, I would mostly save this trick for situations where the fabric back receives no wear: banners and cushion tops.   

Here is a schematic showing the idea.

Concept sketch, two-part floats

The graph represents the letters "a" and "w." Recall that the banner was knit with splits. This means knotting the tails together makes a loop. Accordingly, I knotted together each brown or gold tail from the letter "w." I then looped the green yarn through the brown/gold loop to knit the stitches of the green letter "a." In this case, the knitting was right-side up (downward pointing v's) so that the letters were worked <-- right to left. Of course, this sketch is only a conceptualization. The loops are on the fabric back while the letters are knit on the fabric front. 

As you see, the two words are not horizontally aligned, meaning, each brown/gold loop was knotted but left on the fabric back to wait for the appropriate round, when the green yarn would be looped through, then knit.*

Here is a closeup of the actual two-part floats on the back. Because this photo shows the fabric flipped over, the floats now appear to be going the other way.

Two-part floats IRL

I have to admit that even on a banner back, where there is no wear, knots in yarn want to undo. However, these particular knots cannot follow their inclination to pop open because I felted them shut. Using a single dry-felting needle, I stabbed each knot several times from various angles until the knots gave up trying and laid quietly. This also let me cut the knot-tails shorter than I otherwise could have. Read more about needle felting in the immediately preceding post

As a practical matter, two-part floats cannot really be secured by ladderback methods, but must be afterwards fastened. 

Afterward controlling long floats by needle felting

Another option for afterward controlling long floats, plain or two-part, is needle-felting them in place during the finishing process (video).

Touching up letters

In the previous post on needle felting, I also showed using a single felting needle to delicately touch up letter-stitches which don't connect on the diagonal. This is called surface felting, and here is an example of improving a knit letter "o" using this technique.

A white stitch arm (leftmost panel, red arrows) intervenes between two dark stitches at the top right. By inserting a single felting needle across the gap (middle panel, blue arrows) the gap is covered over by a few wisps of dark yarn. Now the diagonal is continuous (rightmost panel). More details about surface felting

* * *

OK! Woolen yarns have been selected. The letters have been charted and direction of the v's determined. Sufficient stitches have been left for the steek. The yarn for the letters has been split and rejoined. The letters have been legibly knit via lifting, with continuous coverage of cc strands along the fabric back. The many ends are either parked or worked into two-part floats. The ordinary floats have been fastened down as-you-go (ladderback) or await being fastened in the finishing process (tacking or needle-felting). The letters have been touched up to read in smooth diagonals. What now? 

This post is long enough already. As I hinted above, I'm putting off to the next post, the many ways to tidy up the back and work in ALL THOSE ENDS parked on the fabric front.

I will instead end this post by showing two further banners I've knit. Fair warning! In classic banner tradition, the subject is politics.

.Politics

In 2016, I wrote that that those who vote for Trump have no business taking free information, not even in a minor way like reading TECHknitting. I said...

If you believe in your heart that everyone must get along with no free help from you, you know in your heart that you need no free help from me

I like to think that, through the strength of their convictions, such readers have avoided TECHknitting these past nine years. However, if you're a Trump voter somehow still reading here, I address you directly.

By your vote...


Everyone lost, some just don't know it yet. THIS IMAGE IS COPYRIGHT FREE

Knitting for a world on fire

Many wrote to ask whether TECHknitting is going to shut down again like last time Trump was president. The answer is no. Sometimes I wonder who's out there reading, but wow! the emails and dm's on this subject have been more than on any single point of knitting technique, ever. I shall do as you ask, and not shut down this time. Disillusioned? Fuming? In disbelief? You are. I am. Yes. But this time, I plan to stay and hope you will too. 

Meanwhile, knit a banner. Hang it at the county fair. Enter it in a knitting competition. Wear it on your chest. Call it knitting for a world on fire.

And, if any Trump fans got down this far, here is my final banner. I assume you are setting up to bid me farewell, and I bid you the same. For the second time inside a decade, I say....

Goodbye to you, Trump voters

* * *

For the rest, lovely readers, I will see you next post, where the subject is working in all the many ends resulting from banner knitting. 

--TK

* The green was knit in splits also, and where those splits were multi-hued, the strand was fabricated by felting (spit-splicing) the two greens together at the apex of the loop. The overlapped part of the splice (multi-hued) mostly stayed parked on the fabric back. The brown/gold strands could not be spit-spliced into a loop because there's simply not enough room on such short ends to work that kind of splice, hence the necessity for the knot. 

* * *

Questions? Feedback? Contact me at 
Blue Sky  @techknitter.bsky.social or  

Sunday, December 29, 2024

Needle felting tricks for knitters
Cutting Steeks, Fastening Floats
& Touching up Color Knitting

Needle felting is a trick worked on dry fabric, which melds together woolen fiber. I say woolen because actual wool from the back of a living sheep really is the only fiber with with structure and body for this form of fabric-torture. And torture it is: as used in knitting, needle felting involves plunging very sharp barbed needles through fabric to draw wisps of the top layer down into the bottom layer. These wisps serve to bind the two layers together. 

In the art of hand-knitting, needle felting is often associated with the trick of steeking (cutting) a fabric.

Needle-felted steek, cut and folded back

It is also useful to hold floats from color-knitting onto the fabric-back.

Elephant with  floats needle-felted to fabric back

We'll get to these uses, and others as well, but first, the basics. 

Felting needles and pad

There are several types of felting needles. All feature a wickedly sharp point atop a barbed shaft. 


Close up of Clover brand needle felting tool needles. Click here to enlarge.

The barbs are arranged so they catch wisps of wool on the downward stroke only. When withdrawn, the barbs do not catch any wisps. When one layer of woolen fabric is felted to another below, the downward-drawn wisps are permanently parked in the lower layer. These wisps are what hold (felt) the two fabrics together. 

The safest way to use a felting tool is with a pad beneath. This may resemble a sponge or hairbrush. I find the hairbrush type more useful. Either way, the fabric to be felted is laid over the pad and the needles plunge through the fabric, then harmlessly into the pad rather than your fingers--less blood that way. Again, these needles are wicked sharp. They deserve the same respect as a sewing needle, or more, being barbed.

Felting needles are generally held in a pen- or knob-type holder, and you can usually select how many of the available holders to fill with needles. The felting pen above comes with three needles, as shown, but by unscrewing the case, you can choose to work with only one or two needles at a time. 

Wool

Real wool from the back of a live sheep gives the best results. This is because of wool's scaly nature at the microscopic level. 

Wool (left two images) compared with other fibers

With wear and pressure, scales of wool catch on one another, almost like the hooks of velcro. Since even the thinnest wisps of wool are scaly like this, pushing a wisp from a top layer into a bottom layer "velcro's" the layers together. This micrograph comparison of wool to other fibers--especially the synthetic fiber at far right--shows that pushing wisps of non-wool fiber into one another would not have the same catching effect because these other fibers have few or no scales to catch together. 

To further improve the "velcro" effect, steaming wool makes wool's scales open like a pine cone, causing further interlocking. So, needle felting through steamy fabric increases the effect, while steaming afterwards strengthens the bond between layers. Therefore, although needle felting is called a dry fabric technique (as opposed to its cousin, wet felting) a little water in the form of steam vapor really helps the process along. If you've tried needle felting before and haven't found much benefit, try again through a steamy fabric. There is a big difference. 

Needle felting is really only speeding up a process which would happen naturally as scaly woolen fibers rub on one another. However! Rubbing operates at one time scale and metal barbs at another. It would take a LOT of rubbing to create the felting which needles produce in a short time. Overdoing needle felting on hand knits can felt the fibers enough to undo stitch definition, just as wet felting does. Super-overdoing can actually cut right through the fabric, especially on thinner yarns. Felting thin yarn takes a LOT less plunging than the worsted weight I used in the demos below. Bottom line: proceed slowly, practice on a swatch. 

Needle felting steeks


A steek is a trick for slitting an opening (usually a front opening or armholes) into a garment which was knit circularly. In other words, a sweater might be knit in a tube right to the top, with the front and armhole openings being slit open afterwards with a pair of scissors. For more background, here's a link about steeking in general--the "why," plus, advantages and disadvantages. 

As you can imagine, the main trick with a steek is to prevent the knitting adjoining the cut from coming loose. This is where needle felting can contribute. 

The theory of needle felting steeks is that felted fabric cannot unravel. The practice is to felt the steek "bridge" thoroughly before cutting. After all these years, I'm still anxious about cutting hand knitting, so when felting, I also stabilize the edges of a steek with slip stitching. Also, I find it easier to felt "within the lines." However, you may be bolder. If you choose to felt without first slip stitching, skip down to here

Below photo shows slip stitching stabilization in progress, demoed on on a single color swatch. The work is done with a thin tough yarn called heel reinforcement yarn, and I chose red for visibility: usually you would use a color-matched yarn.  If heel reinforcement yarn is not at hand, consider  unspinning splits from a heavier yarn.

Using the crochet hook, a loop of red has just been drawn through to the front from the back of the fabric. 



A new loop is drawn through from the back, one stitch down along the same column. Now there are two loops around the barrel of the crochet hook. 

 

The new loop is drawn through the old. Now there is only one loop around the hook. 


The cycle repeats, each new loop being first drawn through from back to front one stitch down the same column, then through the old loop already on the crochet hook. In this way, both sides of the steek are reinforced with slip stitching. The red yarn starts and ends by drawing through a loop of yarn from back to front, then threading the tail over the bottom (or top) edge, through the loop. Pulling the tail tightens the loop over the edge. This permanently fastens down the tail, shown protruding, lower edge of above photo. 


Here is a color sample, slip stitched in the same way. In this case, I also ran a thin split of white yarn up the cut line as a marking. The distance between the center marking and the stabilizing slip stitches is dictated by your appetite for danger. I allowed two-and-a-half columns on either side of the cut-column. Fewer columns would be less bulky, but with a perhaps higher danger of pulling loose under stress.


Two-color knitting, front (left) and back, slip stitched in red, with a cut-line marked in white yarn.

With the steek reinforced, it is time to felt. If you skipped the part about reinforcement, this video is where you rejoin. 

Not shown on the video is the fact that, just before felting, the fabric was made soft and steamy with a shot-of-steam iron held several inches above the fabric. A hand-held steamer would work also, if you have one. 



Transcript. Here is the process of needle felting. This is the needle felter. And you see the (needle felting) pad below. You simply insert the needle felting tool into the fabric from the front, being careful to stay within the lines of the stabilization. You plunge the needle rapidly, back and forth through the fabric.


Despite being repeatedly plunged, the front fabric face features hardly any loss of stitch definition.



The same is not true of the back, which is very fuzzy. Right along the cut-line, it's almost hard to tell exactly which color is where, so melded have they become. To get to this point, the fabric was steamed several times and plunged repeatedly. Although most intense along the cut line, the felting does extend the entire width of the steek-bridge within the red stabilization. 

The cut comes next.


Transcript. Now we come the action shot of cutting the steek. I think it's very handy to have that white cutting line. If you look at the edge of the fabric, you can see how felted it is. And, here’s the inside. Even if I run my finger along here, no edges are coming loose. So this is a really solid and stable edge. A little bit of the fluff is coming out (including the cutting line!) but the edge itself is not disintegrating in any way.


After cutting open the steek, the next step is very often picking up stitches to work a border, or bands, or a sleeve. These stitches would be picked up outside of the slip stitching, along the red dotted line. (In this context, "outside" means NOT between the slip stitches and the cut edge.)

The pick up line is shown on the front of the fabric, one half-column away from the stabilizing stitches. However, it could be located  further. 

Needle felting in steeking has another use also, and that is, fastening down the cut flap. At left in below photo, the previously felted edge is pinned back. Once pinned, it was steamed and then needle felted. Pins removed, it has now bonded to the fabric-back in the folded-back position, at right in below photo. It has formed a "self facing."

Left: pinned. Right: pins removed, steamed and then felted in place, the flap has formed a "self facing." 
The felted-down flap is called a "facing," because it provides a smooth face on the inside of a garment opening. It is a "self-facing" because the fabric its
elf was folded over to form the facing. This is in contrast to an "applied facing," meaning a separate fabric is knitted to act as the facing.

Seen edge-on, the stabilizing stitches show in the fold. If this were to be the actual fabric edge in real life, I would have stabilized using color-matched yarn. 


By the way: if you had wanted to pick up stitches along the red dotted line of three photos back, you would have picked those up before folding and felting the self-facing. In this way, the facing would hide the picked up stitches. Also, the flap would fold back at the pick-up line, not at the slip-stitch line. 

How tight is the bond in the fold? When new-made, it could be ripped apart if you wanted to. In that sense, felting between layers is not as permanent as felting before cutting. However, with wear (and perhaps a bit more steaming) the fabric layers eventually meld so they're nearly impossible to rip apart. 

Needle felting color knitting


Fastening Floats

In color knitting, the contrasting color or background yarn not in use runs along the back of the fabric in loose strands called "floats." A great deal of knitting ingenuity has been devoted to different methods for fastening floats--especially long floats--to the back fabric face. However, needle felting isn't usually considered in this context. This oversight is a pity because needle felting can hold floats in place. In fact, if you think about it, holding down the floats is exactly what needle felting is doing when cutting steeks in color knitting.

This video compares two little elephants.* The one at left features felted floats, on the other, the floats are not yet felted. The longest float is 14 stitches. There are also 12's, 10's, and 8's. 


Transcript: This is the back of two little elephants. On this one (right), the floats are not felted down. I can easily insert the knitting needle under here, and if I stroke the back of the fabric, you can see that the floats are independent. These are some quite long floats: these are 14’s, this is a 12, these are 10’s and 8’s in here. On this side (left) the floats have been felted down. If I stroke the back of the (left) fabric, the floats don’t come up. They are attached, even this very long one here, this 14. And these 10’s. And this is the advantage of felting down long floats. If a kid put this little garment on, they wouldn’t catch their fingers and toes in it, like they would if this here (right, unfelted) was the finished product.


Flattening fabric

Here is a photo of the fronts after felting. Turned right-side out, the felted elephant is at right. Another advantage can now be seen: the contrasting color stitches of the felted elephant are much smoother against the background fabric than with the unfelted elephant at left. Felting has flattened the "fabric breaks," meaning, the little valleys along the edge of a linear color pattern where a column of cc stitches rises up just where the column of background stitches dives down. Compare particularly along the back columns, under the tails. 

Felting has also flattened out the fabric overall. Compare, for example, the felted elephant's stomach to that of the unfelted. Both elephants have been steam blocked. Yet even so, the felted one lies smoother against the background stitches. 

Right elephant has been flattened to the background fabric via needle felting. Click to enlarge

Flattening out works just as well for that one contrast color stitch which just persists in sticking up. Perhaps the yarn got thicker just at that one spot, perhaps the tension went off. Needle felting will tame its stubborn little ways so its lays flat.

 Correcting tension--loose floats 

Loose floats make for bad tension. Needle felting can tighten up that occasional loose float. Working from the front while tugging at the loose loop on the back, adjust the tension until it looks correct. Then, flip the fabric over. Finally, pull each loop into a nearby column.

Below left: double-pointed needle inserts under two loose loops on the elephant's back. Center: crochet hook draws the loose bottom loop into a nearby column. Right:crochet hook draws the loose top loop into a nearby column. 



Below left: knitting needles point to where the loops have been worked into the column. Right: the same column, lightly felted. Once felted, the loose loops meld into the column, never to come loose again. 

Surface-felting

This is a trick for improving diagonal lines in color knitting. When knitting a diagonal, the stitches may not join into a smooth line. Often, the arm of the neighboring stitch gets in the way. Result: two same-color stitches don't meet on the kitty-corner. 

Very delicate work with a single felting needle can solve this problem by surface-felting together the two stitches which ought to touch. Use a single needle to tease together a few wisps from each stitch in turn, until the stitches do join over the gap. This kind of touch-up especially helps make knitted alphabet letters more legible. 

Close-up of the dark letter "O" before, during, and after surface felting over an intervening white stitch-arm. Red arrows locate the intervening white arm. Blue arrows show the path of a single felting needle passing through two dark kitty-corner stitches as it travels towards upper left. In the rightmost photo, the dark yarn is fuzzed over the gap. The diagonal is now continuous. 

Improving the letter "O" via needle felting.
Left: gap in diagonal (red arrows). 
Center: inserting felting needle along fabric surface. 
Right: gap covered.
(I also fuzzed the O's  left corner somewhat.) 

And, speaking of alphabet letters, knitting letters and words is what the next post is about. (Warning--political!) 

--TK

Questions? Feedback? Contact me at 
Blue Sky  @techknitter.bsky.social or  
talk to me about this post on Ravelry TECHknitter forum

* Elephants adapted from a free Ravelry sock pattern designed by Jenny Lorefors.