5 Tools to Keep Your Colorwork From Tangling

A stranded colorwork sweater in progress (via Wikimedia Commons)

A couple summers ago I was knitting a big stack of swatches for our Colorwork Knitting Weekend.

Most of them went fine.

The fair isle ones did not.

Every time I switched colors, my two strands of yarn wrapped around each other a little bit more.

A few rounds in, they looked less like two balls of yarn and more like a I had been braiding the hair of one of my daughters.

So I’d stop, dangle the swatch in the air, and let it spin until everything came undone.

Then knit a few more rounds.

Then do it all over again.

I was getting annoyed.

Even though I have plenty of experience dealing with unruly yarn, sometimes you need a little help keeping thing organized.

Twisted colorwork yarns (via Sorcerer Crafts)

Why colorwork gets out of hand

Knitting with multiple colors isn’t complicated.

But like my 3 year old, the yarn doesn’t always listen.

It likes to do it’s own thing from time to time.

Most of it’s rebelliousness comes down to three things.

Your strands twist. Every time you drop one color and pick up the other, they turn around each other. Do that a few hundred times and you’ve made a rope.

Your yarn runs away. Two balls rolling around in your lap means one of them always ends up under the couch.

Your yarn collapses. Center-pull balls get floppy near the end and turn into yarn barf. That’s a recipe for tangles and knots.

None of that gets fixed with better technique.

It gets fixed by changing how you manage your yarn.

That’s what today’s picks are all about.

Colorwork Accessories We Love

Some of these are simple, some of them are downright clever.

All of them make colorwork a little less fiddly.

The Colorwork Wheel V2.0 by Maeli Designs

Holds up to 4 yarn cakes | 3D printed, spins on a bearing

Each cake sits on its own peg, and you turn the wheel to untwist your strands instead of your knitting. Made for stranded and fair isle, not intarsia.
Get it at Etsy
Yarn Gator by The Patchwork Frog

Holds up to 6 colors | Lace through super bulky

Clips onto the edge of any project bag and feeds each yarn up through its own hole. The jaws open, so you can take it off without cutting anything.
Get it at Etsy
Walnut Double Yarn Holder

2 wooden spinners on metal bearings | Fits jumbo cakes and cones

Two colors, two spinners, zero twisting. It sits next to you on the couch and each ball unwinds on its own.
Get it at Amazon
Lemonwood Mini Minder

Birch or clear acrylic | 4" base, 6" tall

These gorgeous yarn holders dangle from your wrist and are perfect for traveling, or just knitting while you walk.
Get it at Jimmy Beans Wool
Fox & Pine Stitches Yarn Belt

Fits center-pull skeins | 4 colors

Cinches around your center-pull ball so it doesn't collapse into yarn barf near the end. Cheap, simple, and it works.
Get it at Jimmy Beans Wool
Palette Color Card by Knit Picks

150 colors | Fingering (CYC #1) | 100% Peruvian Highland Wool (231yds/50g)

Real strands of every Palette color, sorted by color family. Picking fair isle colors on a screen is a gamble, and this takes the guessing out of it.
Get it at Knit Picks