To Strand or Not To Strand - That Is The Question

When I knit colour work of the Fairisle type - like this

Prairie Sunset -- Knits from the North Country


or this
My Own Design.

I strand. I do not weave. Gasps of horror. I hear them now. Anne and Eugene at Philosophers Wool have done much to promote the 'Two-Handed Fairisle" method. And they have a great following. But me, I like stranding better.

What's the difference, some of you may ask. Well, knitters who use weaving as their method of carrying the not-in-use colour , catch the unused colour on every stitch. With a little up and down movement, they wrap the working yarn around the unused yarn to hold it tight to the garment.

Stranders, like me, do as Elizabeth Zimmermann tells us to do in her book, Knitting Around "Avoid a carry greater than 5 stitches long." Yep, that's my style. A lot less work than weaving every stitch.

But laziness is only part of the reason I strand. I like the finished product better. When I catch every stitch , I end up with a much stiffer finished product. And sometimes, the colour behind pokes thru to the front. Of course, it could just be that I'm not good at it.

Definitely, the non-public side of the work looks better with the weaving method. But who would sacrifice the public side for a better inside? And really, the inside of these don't look too bad.


Those of the weaving persuasion say that stranded sweaters won't last as long. Things will get caught on, or in, the strands ,chancing a rip or pull. With wool, though, it doesn't take long for the strands to hook on to each other. And who would attempt these sweaters in any fibre but wool? And I'll be careful. Promise.

And so, Tam #3 from Knitty's Winter issue, is being stranded.

It's about half done. I hope to have it finished by the weekend, as Fred and I leave Monday for a trip to BC. I have new yarn for the trip. Can I knit on the plane these days?