theraineysisters knitting and so much more

Mary Sue asked me about the jogless stripes method that I referenced when speaking about my Breathing Space.  I was going to wait and describe it when I posted my finished project, but my project has hit a speed bump.  🙁  So, I decided to share it now because I was asked!!

The center line shows the position of the change in colors.  It is jogless, but can be seen because it protrudes slightly.  This is because I twisted the yarns together on each row to avoid gaps.  That has really nothing to do with the jog per se but more to do with carrying the colors up the rounds and leaving holes between changes.  I think some of that will block out (I have not blocked this yet).  And to be honest, I don’t care about the vertical line now that the jogs are gone!  Woo Hoo! 😉

The original pattern has the color changes occurring on the longer of the two sides.  I did not like any of the usual techniques for jogless stripes when I started the sweater, so I completely changed the construction so my joins would take place on the short side (too complicated to describe now).  After I finished the short rows that create the angles of the sweater, and got to the short side to start working the stripes in the round, I tried every jogless technique I could think of.  They were all horrible looking, until I found The Icelandic Knitter’s Jogless Join!  And that is the technique I used for the stripes.  It works really well.

In a nutshell, you knit to the end of your round with Color A.  Do not remove EOR marker.  Place the last Color A stitch back on the left needle and knit it again with Color B (this step is kind of awkward).  Knit Color B round as you normally would, but knit the last stitch in round by lifting the Color A stitch from the end of the Color A round and knit it together with the extra Color B stitch.  She shows pictures of this.  Many people do this step with the first stitch of the round, but I think this works better.