Knitting with two balls of yarn

[storyfan]

I've never knitted anything that required a double thread until I picked up an easy afghan pattern. The pattern itself is no problem, but I'm wondering if there's a way to keep the yarn from twisting. After ever row I have to untwist the balls of yarn which is easy but annoying.

Right now I've got each ball in a separate box, but it doesn't seem to help much. I'm using giant balls of yarn (those super saver types that are 1 pound each that began as skeins), so could the size be the problem? Should I have left them as giant skeins?

I'd appreciate any advice. If this is an unavoidable problem, that's OK. In the scheme of things, it's not all that bad. :)

Comments

[marusarel]

I tend to knit socks two at a time, and so I have the same problem. I don't have them in separate boxes or bags, but I do keep the two balls stationary on opposite sides of my work table. It doesn't help much with needing to adapt to the two strands of yarn, but I tend to be careful to move the strand I am done working with to the back or the front of the work, whatever's most convenient...it doesn't keep them from needing maintenance, but it does keep the maintenance a bit more simple than trying to untwist strands every round.

Also, I have no idea if that explanation made sense. It's difficult to explain. O.x

[hellkitty]

If you're using huge skeins, keeping them as skeins and centerpulling them is your best bet. If you've balled it, then the best solution is probably Ye Olde Fashioned sticking the balls in a basket or plastic bin with holes drilled in the top for the yarn to come out?

[wyomingnot]

It's a matter of how you turn your work at the end of the row.

Straighten out your yarn before you start a row. At the end of the row, when you're turning. one way will twist the strands, the other way will not. It just a matter of figuring out which and then remembering to do it.

At least that's been my experience.

Or maybe I'm remembering wrong, and that's what helps when you're working from both ends of a center-pull ball.

Either way, it has nothing to do with the size of your balls. ;)

[lannamichaels]

I use plastic ziplock baggies. Each ball of yarn goes into a bag, which then gets zipped up except for just enough for the yarn to get out. One just ends up winding around the other, and the bags make it easier to unwind one ball from the other.

[attie]

There is a way to avoid it, but you'll earn a new (though in most cases much less annoying) problem instead :)

Basically, the twisting occurs because whenever you switch colors, you pick up the other one from the same direction no matter if it's color A or color B. The way I was taught, for instance, was to always pick up the yarn from below and put away the one I'm dropping over the top. Of course, if you alternately pick up one yarn, put it over the other, then pick up the other and put it over the first, always in the same direction, you'll inevitably end up with a twisted mess. However, it's an even mess, because both yarns are treated the same.

Now, one way to solve that is to always pick up color A from the top and color B from the bottom. On patterns that switch colors almost every stitch, many people will actually keep both yarn on their finger and just alternately pick up either one or the other, and that way you will naturally always keep one on top and one at the bottom. (People who can knit both Continental and English-style can also keep one yarn on each hand, and knit one color in Continental and one in English. That's even neater once you manage it!) So they will never tangle (from the knitting, anyway, god knows yarn will always find a way to get all tangled up.) You can also do that without actually keeping both yarns picked up at the same time, just by making sure to always keep both strands in the same order.

However, if you do that you're not doing the same thing for each yarn anymore! Always keeping one on top will have an effect on what the result looks like: it's called "yarn dominance". The effect can be invisible in some cases and huge in others, it depends on the color and the type of yarn that you have and probably also on how tight you knit. I like this post explaining yarn dominance and it has an example where you can see it really well!

(In the end, my personal solution was just to un-tangle yarns as I go by always moving the ball to the other side when I picked up the other color. Takes a little longer to switch yarns, but it's much less annoying than having to untangle!)