Yarn Dominance
Do you have a yarn dominance gene? We all do…some worse than
others. Yarn or color dominance is a bit of a mystery that refers back to the
way you hold your yarns.
Here‘s the deal… depending on how you hold your yarns, one
color will be more prominent then the other. You may not see this on a single
round…but over a few rounds, it can be very obvious. I say “can be” because
this prominence can be very obvious in some knitters and not so obvious in
others. Here is an example in a swatch I did for a beginning stranded class….
For the bottom panel, I held the background yarn (purple) in my right hand and the pattern yarn (green)in my left. For the top panel, I switched. Pattern in the right and background in the left.
I think my outcome is about average. I have seen dominance swatches where there is a big difference between the two.
Here's what the back looks like:
There are lots of explanations out there…but I have been
trying to think of a way to describe it so it is easily understandable.
Ok…try this…take two fingers…your index and middle finger
will do…and stick them out with your palm down…as if you are going to poke someone in both eyes...Three Stooges style.. These represent the two yarns coming off of your
knitting round.
They are both on the same round, so they are level with each
other…but they cannot stay that way if you work with them, right? Think of
knitting the first “yarn”…then think of knitting with the second “yarn”. This
second yarn cannot occupy the exact same space as the first as it travels to
work the second stitch…it has to either go above or over the first yarn….or
under or below it.
To represent this, turn your hand so your fingers are
vertical…like you are pressing a door bell with both fingers…with your thumb on
the top.
By turning your palm to the right or left, you change which
finger is on top.
Now, line your top finger with the edge of a flat service,
like a counter top.
The edge represents the needle with stitches. You will
notice that the “yarn” on top has a very short distance to travel to get to the
“needle”….while the “yarn” on the bottom has a fraction of a bit further to go
to reach the “needle”. It is this extra distance that causes a slightly larger
stitch…making stitches created from the lower yarn more prominent.
For years I either didn’t know this yarn dominance thing
happened…or didn’t really care about it…or didn’t really think that it applied
to me and my knitting…until I was taking a mittens class in which the
instructor was working along with us on a stranded mitten. I had asked a
question which involved her showing me her work…and it hit me…exact same yarn,
exact same pattern…yet her mitten was more yellow (or white…I forget which)
than mine.
So I started to read about it…but the over/above under/below
stuff lost me. I was a two handed stranded knitter. What did I know of over
under above below. I used one hand or the other…and generally put the color
with the most stitches in my right hand (since I started out as a western
knitter). I just didn’t get it.
Finally, the head smacking moment arrived and I got it. It
is amazing how you read something enough times and it will finally make sense. I
also could finally translate the over/above, under/below thing to the two
handed method. The yarn in the left hand is the under/below yarn…the yarn which
will dominate….and since I generally want the pattern to be prominent, I put
the pattern yarn in my left hand and the background yarn in my right.
The final revelation came when I read that the obviousness of the dominance is a sliding scale. So the knitter with the minimal difference between the two won't see what all of the fuss is about...until you see a swatch where there is a huge difference.
Bottom line, though, whether you understand all of the explanations…my two fingers on
the edge of the counter included…the one thing that rang true for me was to be
consistent. That is all you really need to know in the end…be consistent.
How dominant is your yarn dominance gene? Leave a comment.
Next week: Creating stitches for sleeves and/or ribbing
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