(Note: All About Floats, Part One is located HERE.)
The photo shows an assortment of my knitted items inside out. Click on the photo to see it larger. In general I do not weave or twist my floats so the reverse of the work looks like a mirror image of the design on the front. However there are a few spots on the items in the photo where I can see woven floats - mainly in the mitten at the bottom left in the cuff. It is a rabbit design so there were some long floats there.
Why are long floats a problem in stranded color knitting? Some knitters don't like having long loops on the back of their work - they worry their hands or toes or jewelry will get caught on them. (The fingers and toes issue is much more of a problem if you're knitting for children who obviously have smaller fingers and toes.) Some knitters worry that long floats will compromise the knitted work if the float gets caught in something and breaks.
I've never gotten any body parts caught in a float. However, I do knit with non-superwash wool almost exclusively and a nice sticky wool will keep the floats close to the back of the sweater. In fact in some cases (like if you're using ultra-sticky Shetland wool) the floats can actually felt to the knitting which is a bonus .
Long floats are also problematic because they can screw up anyone's tension, not just beginners. They definitely cause havoc in my own color knitting. I wonder how many new knitters have sworn off colorwork because they unwittingly tried to knit something with long floats and had poor results. I buy a lot of stranded patterns and I always appreciate when a designer takes long floats into account by breaking them up somehow.
My beef with really long floats is that they interfere with my flow. When you're knitting colorwork you can achieve a wonderful almost-meditative flow. Let's say you are knitting a Nordic snowflake design. You go across each row merrily knitting. I generally repeat the stitch numbers in my head so if it is 4 black, 3 white, 2 black, 1 white, I'll just say 4,3,2,1 throughout the row. However if it is 4,3,2,14 then I generally have to stop and make sure the 14 stitch float is long enough and I also usually re-count that 14 stitch float to make sure I counted the stitches right in the first place. It slows me down.
This brings me to the one and only rule in this series no matter how you deal with your floats:
EXREMELY IMPORTANT FLOAT RULE - Whenever you knit an especially long float - let's say 8 or more stitches (fewer if you're new to colorwork), always make sure you stretch out the float so it isn't too tight. There are two ways to do this. One way is to simply stop and stretch out the stitches on the right hand needle after a long float. In other words, if you knit 10 stitches in black and you are about to knit a stitch in white, stretch out those 10 black stitches on the right needle before you knit the white stitch to make sure your float is loose enough. Too loose floats are much better to have than too tight floats. Some knitters use one of their fingers to stretch out floats as they are knitting to save time. If you're knitting with one color in each hand, try using your middle right finger or your right index finger under or over the float to keep it loose.
You'll find knitting books and patterns and Ravelry members that absolutely insist you weave your floats every five stitches or every inch or whatever. You may also find some knitting books that insist you should never weave your floats. They're all wrong. You get to figure out the method that works the best for you. Some knitters get better tension when weaving floats and some knitters get better tension when leaving their floats alone. So if you are doing one method and you don't like the results, try another method. (More about that in Part Three of this series.)
I recommend that knitters new to colorwork start with a pattern that has short floats until they get their feet wet. But let's say you have your heart set on knitting a design with long floats for your very first project. First, consider knitting it in low contrast yarns if you are going to weave or twist your floats. If you are doing a black and white design (high contrast yarns) you are more likely to have issues with woven floats showing through the front of the work.
Another option is to tweak the color chart a bit. You can always add random stitches of the color that has long floats in any design. Remember the popular and cute Olympic Reindeer Hat I talked about in Part One with the really long floats between each moose? Check out Raveler Bartlebean's version - extra snowflakes were added to the design to reduce the size of the floats. Ladysmithknitter made the tree taller and added snowflakes. Lastly, you can duplicate stitch the section with the long floats (Omgirls did the reindeer antlers on her hat and Em-Jay did the entire reindeer in duplicate stitch) or you can even do intarsia in the round if the floats are extremely long.
In Part Three I'll show you all four methods of dealing with floats - weaving, not weaving, twisting, and tacking down floats on the back of your work and I'll list the pros and cons of each method. You'll be able to see what each method looks like from the front and the back and I'll load large versions of each photo as well.
In Part Three I'll show you all four methods of dealing with floats - weaving, not weaving, twisting, and tacking down floats on the back of your work and I'll list the pros and cons of each method. You'll be able to see what each method looks like from the front and the back and I'll load large versions of each photo as well.