How I did that (part 3)
So, now you have a very simple picture to work from (even if its mine from the previous page), how would you go about making this?
Firstly under tunisian I would whole heartedly recommend 1 block of wool per block of colour. The following explains why:
Changing Colours
As you’ve seen from my current work in progress it often involves changing colours. How you swap 2 colours never changes, its best advice is that you twist the colours in the direction you’re working, so with tunisian, when working on the forward (working right to left) you put the current yarn over the new yarn, so you swap right over left. On the return you are working left to right, you do left over right, so you make a join rather than create standalone columns of stitches.
With this blanket, Im trying to be super tidy… So Ive taken some pictures to illustrate what I mean.
Previously Ive carried the yarn behind the rows, this works out just as tidy at the front and as long as its a short distance at the back (or you kinda loop the previous colour up so it keeps it close to the work) this works very well. However, heres what this looks like front and back
Front:
Back
As you can see its not “untidy” but when I show you the back of my current work where I dont carry any yarn, I use a new section for each grouping of stitches.. (bar the many ends I havent sewn in yet) its much neater.
As a reminder if you’re working on a peice such as I am and changing colour you have the old colour in your left hand with the section of new colour dangling waiting for you to use it, basically pick up the new colour (on the forward row ) your old colour always goes over the top of the colour your picking up, so you entrap it when you make your next stitch, this “running stitch” look on the back shows it basically sewing the colours together and this is a good thing!
You would see a similar effect if you did single/double/treble crochets too. The back would be a mess only because you change sides each time chances are you would have an almighty mess – now you can carry yarns through stitches but it often shows. So, in short, for best blanket and a pattern that has a number of colour changes even between the same two colours, you will need to use different chunks to make the nicest product.
Obviously the more you have to change colour the more important this becomes..
See all those bobbins? While I dont advise bobbins any more, imagine with that many changes how messy it would be!
