One of my knitting resolutions for 2014 is to learn plaid-making techniques. The techniques that knitters use to form vertical lines of color include embroidery, crochet, slip stitch, intarsia and fair isle. I have already described in detail how to use duplicate stitch embroidery to create a plaid here:
http://yarnstylist.com/2013/10/tips-for-making-plaid-using-duplicate-stitch.html
This technique was perfect for a beginner to plaid and I was thrilled how it succeeded in my jacket, Striven:
I have been learning a lot about plaid-making techniques in the Ravelry group, Anthropologie, where there is a Mad for Plaid Knit-a-Long going on. The ever accomplished Angela created this emblem for our KAL:
It was through my fellow plaid enthusiasts that I learned of the technique to create plaid using a crochet hook. Below you will find a link to the video which was recommended to me on the crochet technique:
Here is how it works:
1. Knit a swatch to determine your stitch and row guage for your yarn.
2. Use your guage calculations to plan out the spacing of your colored vertical lines in proportion to your colored horizontal lines. They should form the boundaries of a square for a traditional plaid.
3. Knit primarily in stockinette, but create a purl stitch on the right side of your work to mark the position of each colored vertical line. As you knit up, a vertical line of purl stitches will form that represents each colored vertical stripe.
4. Once you have finished knitting your piece, use a crochet hook to add the vertical lines of color. You will slip stitch in crochet vertically up over each “ditch” of purl stitches you have created. The crocheted stitches will sit on top of the purls.
The end result will be a plaid. I practiced this technique on an afghan square:
As you can see from the unevenness of some my chain stitches, this is not the easiest technique in the world. In fact, compared to the duplicate stitch technique I used to create plaid, this is much more difficult to control.
Here are some pointers for anyone who wishes to try this crochet technique:
1. DO NOT USE SPLITTY YARN! Ugh, what a nightmare it was using Cascade 220 to knit that swatch!
2. Start by inserting your crochet hook into the knitted piece, and pick up the yarn behind the knitted piece. Perhaps this is self-evident, but it took me a while to figure out how to start from watching the video.
3. The reason I struggled so much with this technique is that, if you watch the video, you will notice that the piece you are embellishing is between you and the hook end of the crochet hook which catches your yarn. So you can’t actually see what you are doing, you have to find the yarn and catch it on your hook by feel. For an experienced crocheter this will be no big deal, but I struggled with this a lot. I mean, you thrust your crochet hook through the fabric, and hope you can catch the yarn on the other side without being able to see what you are doing. If you tilt the piece to the side so you can see;
You may find that your stitches may be tilted to the side as well. So it is actually better to crochet onto your piece while you keep it flat. If you look at the line of stitches below, you can see that the stitches on the right side of the swatch are tilted because I was tilting the piece while I was crocheting. It looks wonky. Whereas the line to the left was crocheted while I was holding the piece flat and so the stitches are flat as well.
Hence my decision to keep on groping in the dark with my hook. The photo below is quite exaggerated because I was trying to hold onto both the swatch and the hook with one hand while I took a photo of the other. But if any of my readers can suggest a better way to get tension on my crocheting from behind that this I would be really grateful. It was most awkward!
As you can see, crochet is not something I do very much. For that reason, I am wondering if intarsia would be a less painful way for me to create vertical stripes in my knitting. I have decided to knit the same afghan square again using intarsia next time to see which technique is easier.