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If you like to knit stripes or colorwork where the colors change regularly, you’ll want to learn how to carry yarn up as you knit so you don’t have as many ends to weave in.
Why Carry Yarn Up?
Before we get to how to carry yarn up, you might be wondering why you would want to do this.
If you’re knitting a project where you will use different yarns at different times, but you come back to each color relatively frequently, that’s an ideal time to carry your yarn instead of cutting it and weaving in the ends.
Carrying yarn up a knitting project involves twisting the working yarn with the other color at the beginning of the row or round so that the non-working color is carried up the side of the project to where you will need it next.
An example of where I’ve used this method is the Ozark Tweed Baby Blanket. Because the colors change so frequently, this keeps me from having tons of ends to weave in, which would actually waste yarn. And because of the applied I-cord border, the carry is hidden inside the project.
When to Carry Yarn
As noted above, projects where the yarn colors change frequently and where the edge will be hidden by a seam or border are the best times to carry yarn.
I’ve done it on scarves without edgings, and it’s not super noticeable from a distance, so it’s up to you if you want to use it then or not.
If the space between times you will need the color again is long, say more than a few inches, you might also decide you’d rather cut the yarn and weave in the ends than have to deal with twisting your yarn every couple of rows.
When working in the round it’s not strictly necessary to carry your yarn up like this, but just leaving a long string on the inside of your project can cause problems, either because you’ll catch your fingers on it when wearing/using the object or because you pull too tightly when bringing the yarn up to use again.
When I carry yarn in the round I try to remember to twist every couple of rounds, but it’s not essential to do it every time (and it’s easy to forget because you don’t see that yarn when you’re knitting in the round.
How to Carry Yarn Up
We join this striped knitting project already in progress. I’ve worked a stripe in brown and two rows of a stripe in blue. Before I start knitting the next row, I want to take note of where the brown strand of yarn is. Here you can see it’s under the blue yarn, which makes sense because I haven’t used it for a couple of rows.
As you make the first stitch, take the working yarn and wrap it under the non-working yarn (here that’s blue around brown). Then knit the stitch.
This twists the strands of yarn together and locks the brown yarn into the side of that stitch, carrying it up the side of the project.
Adjust your yarn so it’s not twisted and continue across the row.
Repeat this at the beginning of every right-side row until you need the first color again.
When you’re ready to change back to knitting with brown, just drop the blue and the brown is right where you need it to start knitting.
Continue this process in the same way with the blue yarn carried up until you need it again.
When you’re completely done using a particular color, you can just cut it, leaving a yarn tail to weave in later.
From the right side this isn’t visible, but for this particular project I’ll be seaming the sides anyway.
Now that you know how to carry yarn up in a project, it will make colorwork knitting that much faster and easier for you.
