Day 129 and Trio

Using three yarns harmoniously is an excellent way for a beginner to learn color knitting. I'm not much of a color knitter myself, and even a long time knitter like me learned something new while working on this scarf.

Take three equal thickness yarns and use one to cast on. Take the second for the first row of knitting and take the third for the second row of knitting. For each following row, knit using the next yarn in the sequence. You won't get out of sequence because setting up like this gives you only one choice of yarn to switch to.

My recipe was three worsted yarns on size 15 needles. I cast on 11 and worked in moss stitch throughout. It gave an interesting effect. Looking at the fabric from the front looked like an even mix of color. From the side looked like bumpy stripes. Most interesting of all was looking from an angle down the length because it had an illusion effect! All of the purl bumps were visible and the knit stitches disappeared and made a three colored checkerboard. I was pleasantly surprised.

The hardest part about three color one row knitting is keeping your yarns from tangling and I found that rotating your needle at the end of each row should be done in a certain sequence. Lay out the yarns with one ball on your left, one on your right and one right in the center. At the end of the row, rotate clockwise. At the end of the next row rotate clockwise. At the end of the third row, rotate counter clockwise. For every row, bring the new yarn up from behind and you'll not have any annoying tangles, or at very least, it worked for me!