Love, Hearts, Infinity Loop videos and your birth certificate

Happy Valentine's day! Here's a heart, knitted Celtic-knot style, for you! 

Happy Valentines!

I've already shown how to knit pretty hearts this "infinity loop" way, so I won't repeat all that here. But! readers have been writing, saying they would appreciate video of some of the more unusual infinity loop procedures. So, hearts for Valentine's day. The bottom part of post is really part 2 of the original heart post: it features 3 video clips of the Celtic heart process, as requested.

HOWEVER!  The top part of this post is more important. On this Valentine's day, I write my married U.S. readers about your love, your marriage and, believe it or not...your birth certificate. 

See, if you are in majority of American married women, you probably changed your name on your beautiful wedding day. Love, roses, a new life, a new name. A family name for your children. 

Yet now, that name change might mean something very different. It might now prevent you, an American citizen, from voting. Yes, believe it or not, if you are married, and if you changed your name upon marriage, then that name change you did in the name of love? Well, it might stop you from voting. 

The "SAVE" act

Currently before Congress is something called the "SAVE" act. It's supposed to fix things so non-US citizens can't vote in US elections. The idea is that you have to present a birth certificate or your passport, to prove you are a US citizen before you can register to vote. Most people use their birth certificate. Eleanor Roosevelt, married her fifth cousin once removed  so her maiden and married names were the same, but that is unlikely to be your case.

There's nothing in the SAVE act saying that your marriage certificate can be presented along with your birth certificate to prove that you are you. The way the bill is currently written, it requires your current name to be the same as what's on your birth certificate in order for you to register to vote. Which, unless you are Eleanor R., it isn't. 

Now, perhaps this isn't all that big of a deal. 

--Perhaps a judge will fix this after someone brings a lawsuit. 
--Perhaps the act will be changed to allow proof of marriage name change before it is passed into law (especially if you call your representative and senators). 
--Perhaps the "SAVE" act will not pass into law at all. 

But, here's another "perhaps." 

-->Perhaps we ladies are on our own in this matter<--

 It certainly wouldn't be the first time we've been on our own, and you know it won't be the last time, either. But there IS something we can do about it right now, without waiting for any other "perhaps" to happen, or some similar gosh-darned foolishness to come down the pike next year. 

Get a passport

If your birth certificate is the document you would ordinarily choose to use, and if your married name is different, the solution is a passport. A passport establishes your citizenship and your name. Even under the SAVE act as currently written, there's no question that a US passport serves as ID for voting. So, on this Valentine's day of love, if you love your country and want to leave no doubt about your ability to do your duty as a citizen and vote, consider applying if you haven't got one already.

To get a passport, you'll need to have at least your birth certificate and a passport photo.

If you know where your birth certificate is, great. If you need a new copy, here's how to get one, and here's a list of every states' vital records offices." Vital records offices" are the ones staffed by the same kind of helpful folks who registered your birth in the first place. 

As to the passport photo, any old photo won't do, it has to fit certain requirements. Maybe, the next time you're at the drugstore (Walgreens, CVS) or sending a package (Fed Ex, UPS) or getting a photocopy (Staples) maybe stop by the service desk and have them take two US passport-sized photo of you! Or, if you're handy with your computer, take a clear photo of yourself, and then you can create proper  passport photos from home (Walmart, PhotoBooth).

A passport would make lovely Valentine's gift to yourself. Perhaps, if you had one, you could take a romantic trip somewhere with that handsome guy you changed your name for! And, you know, also retain your right as an American citizen to vote regardless of "SAVE" or any other foolishness coming up. 

💙💚💕💖💗💘💛💜

Celtic Heart Valentines--some video clips

And now to the knitting portion of today's heart-related post! The requested video clips. If you're only going to watch one, watch clip number 3, the last one--that's the real action shot, IMHO.

The easiest way to integrate these video clips might be to return to the original Celtic Heart post, which I have now updated to include links to the video clips below in the appropriate part of the narrative. However, if you have already internalized the steps for my new "infinity loop" method of knitting Celtic knots, I also present the video clips here, below. 

Below (but not in the original heart post) I've also pasted a transcript of each clip. Readers in other countries have written to say that You-tube does not translate the subtitles into their language, but Google does translate written text of the blog. (To better read the tiny type, copy and paste into a word processing program or note app.)

Clip 1: Getting the bottom four stitches onto the placeholder

All Celtic Infinity Loops start with four stitches knit into "placeholders." The written and illustrated information about those is in the original (first) infinity loop" post, and again in the Heart post. However, starting columns on placeholders is not a usual knitting technique, so here is a video which may explain better than the written links do.

If the below video does not play for you, view it directly on you-tube via this link

--> https://youtu.be/wFTlPeCxHqc

TRANSCRIPT: Hi Techknitter here, showing how to knit the contrasting color Celtic heart. Please forgive my hoarse voice, I’m just getting over a cold. So, what I’m doing here is putting on two stitches from this blue placeholder, I’m putting them onto my left needle. Now this red yarn here in the back is the color that I’m going to knit the heart, and this is the bottom of the ninety-inch fold, as is explained in the pattern. So, now what I’m going to do is knit two stitches, one, two, into the placeholder, there they are. Now, I’m going to make sure that this white yarn here is actually not under, but instead is over this whole assembly. So there it is, it’s over. And, I’m going to purl one stitch, which is the spacer stitch—that’s explained in the pattern. There’s the spacer stitch, and now I’m going to put two more stitches from the placeholder onto the left needle. I’m going to grab them with the right needle just because I find that easier, and then transfer them: transfer one, transfer two. I’m now going to lift the left strand of the ninety-inch red over the white, and I’m going to knit two more stitches—one, two—so these stitches are knit into the placeholder, they’re not knit into the underlying main color. I’m again lifting over the main color background and I’m purling to the end of the row. So, let me show you what I’ve done, what it looks like on the back—let me just get past here. So, here we are the—this is the right arm, and this is the left arm, and they’re on the placeholder, there’s the (blue) placeholder, there’s the (white) spacer, and then we’ll see you at the next clip. 

Clip 2: crossing the stitches over one another in contrasting color work to prevent holes, as shown from the back.

As you knit in a contrasting color, there's always the problem of twisting together the yarns on the back, so holes don't develop. Here's a little clip showing the twisting process as viewed rom the back fabric face. I chose to show this from the back fabric face because that's where the crossing actually takes place, making it easier to see. However, the process is the same when performed from the front fabric face. In other words, when you do the left- or right-purl twist (per pattern) you also cross over the new contrasting color yarn the same way. Again, the cross is on the back fabric face, so the difference is, it's harder to see what you're doing because all that crossing is going on behind the fabric, away from your eyes. 

If the below video does not play for you,  view it directly on you-tube via this link

-->https://youtu.be/G3DfYyDYffI

TRANSCRIPT: Hi! TECHknitter here and this is clip number two of the contrast color Celtic hearts. So, you see I've knit the bottom of the heart and I've divided for the lobes. In both cases where the red starts, it starts on these blue placeholders. Now,  I'm working on the back and I want to show how you change the color, how you pin it down when you change the color. So, I've already done this arm and this part of the lobe here. I'm now knitting the white again.  On the front of the fabric, the white is a reverse stockinette, so when I'm working on the back of the fabric, as I am now, I have to do the opposite, and knit. So, now I've dropped the white, I picked up the red and I crossed the red over. Right here, where I'm pointing to with my finger, the red crosses over the white and that's the important part. Again, we're doing the opposite of how it looks on the front, so I have to purl the Red. Purl, purl. Now I'm changing color again and so I drop the red and I pick up the white, and I want to always make sure with the reds that I'm working with the correct dedicated strand. Like I don't want to take this strand and by accident knit this! So I have to make sure always that I have the correct strand here. I'm confident now that I did that with the right strand, with the correct strand, so I'm going to knit my way over to the last red and then we'll cross over one more time just to make sure how it's done. So now we're ...Hmmm!  Here let me get that Stitch a little better! There we go! Now I'm dropping the white I'm picking up the red again. I'm confident I have the correct strand (I have to check that!) and now I'm going to purl with the red. And again you see, right here between my two thumbs, that the red cross is over the white. So,  it's purl, purl, drop the yarn, pick up the white. Again between my thumbs you see that the white is now crossing over, and now I'm going to knit with the white.  So that's how you cross the colors on the back, and we'll see you at the next little clip.

Clip 3-- unhooking, standing the stitches on their heads, and re-hooking them.

Per above, this is really the action shot IMHO. It is kind of fascinating to stand the stitches on their heads! Please don't be discouraged by how slow this seems to be. For one thing, the camera was in my way and for another, you can work batchwise, which makes things go oh! so much faster. 

Again, remember that the entire method is laid out in several previous posts ("infinity loop" method of knitting Celtic knots, Celtic Heart post). These videos only touch the high points. 

If the below video doesn't load for you, here's the direct You-tube link

 --> https://youtu.be/WsvtB6jJkyM

TRANSCRIPT: Hi! TECHknitter here with a third of three little clips about transforming contrast color Celtic Hearts knit in the infinity loop style. Now what I want to do is,  I want to connect the points here-- the points here the top of the lobe here, and the top of the lobe here, and this is a process called transformation. It's explained and Illustrated in the blog but people have been asking for a video so here's a very brief video. (Edit: lol, not really very brief!) 

You can see that the problem is that, if I were to connect this and this, the stitches wouldn't really look very nice where they're connected at the top. These stitches point down and the heads point up, these stitches point down-- the tails point down and the heads point up. And, if they were connected, they wouldn't fit into one another.  They are both going UP and one needs to go DOWN. 

So I'm going to transform just a little bit of this, because once you've seen how it's done, it's not very hard. So the first thing I do is, I take out the bobby pen out, only the outer column is released. So, I'm going to put the bobby pin back into the inner column, and I want to catch that outer column here on my needle before it gets away from me. So, there it is, and now I just want to get this down. There we go. Now the same situation on the other side. This time I'll catch, catch the stitches before I let them go. That'd be smarter huh?  So there we go, and I'm going to put the inner loop back on its holder: we're not going to deal with that now.

 So now we have the two loops on a needle, and we're going to transfer this loop here to a crochet hook. So this is called the dominant column, and now comes the tricky part! So the dominant column is on the crochet hook and the non-dominant column is now going to be transformed from a stitch that points up into a stitch that points down. So here's what I'm going to do: I'm going to actually pull this out. Now I have this stitch that was below, and I have this loose loop here. And so what I'm going to do is, I'm going to stand this loose loop on its head! I'm going to turn it into a stitch that points down. See? Now it points down. Let me do it again. I take this out, I'm going to pull out the strand here. I'm going to going to catch that back on the needle and now I'm going to pull this stitch through this loop. And, I'll do it one more time. Out comes the strand, it's picked out very carefully.

There it is the loop below, it  goes back on the needle for safekeeping, and the crochet hook grabs the loose loop and pulls it through. So there you have transformation. Now if you look closely at what I've done, you can see that now the stitches are walking around in a very nice curve. They're all pointing in the same direction, and after I do that here, so I have to transform this and then when I get here, these ones will be going the right way, but then all these ones will be going the wrong way. So all these ones here have to be transformed. All that explained with pictures and words in the blog but I just did want to show the process of transformation. Uh, we'll just do it one more time so you can see it again. I'm picking out the strand out of the stitch, I'm catching the stitch so it doesn't go anywhere, I am catching... so I had the dominant column on my crochet hook. I'm catching this non-dominant stitch and I'm drawing it through (or at least I'm trying to draw it through!)  Alright, so there it is: a very nice line of stitches is developing. Thank you very much for watching, we'll see you back at the blog.

  

💙💚💕💖💗💘💛💜

Happy heart day, go get yourself a passport! A Valentine's day gift to yourself.

--TK

PS: Last time I promised you the new "double fold back steek," and that's coming up next. But somehow, Valentine's day snuck up on me so I had to get this blog entry out first. Stay tuned... double fold-back really is coming up. 

Questions? Feedback? Contact me at 

Blue Sky  @techknitter.bsky.social or  

talk to me about this post on Ravelry TECHknitter forum

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 made, why 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.

--Staging is actually an old dress-maker's trick for working in a too-short end. 

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  

talk to me about this post on Ravelry TECHknitter forum

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

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.

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...

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....

* * *

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  

talk to me about this post on Ravelry TECHknitter forum