An Introduction to Colorwork Knitting | Podcast Episode #107

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Want to learn more about colorwork knitting?

It is such a beautiful way to shake up your knitting routine and although there are certainly advanced colorwork knitting techniques, there are some simple ones too. When you’re not sure how to make your next project stand out, use simple stitch patterns and let the color shine.

Special Guest

In this episode of The BHooked Podcast, you’ll learn important lessons in colorwork knitting from the very basic to the more complex. Ella Austin, author of the book, Beginners Guide to Colorwork Knitting: 16 Projects and Techniques to Learn to Knit with Color, is here to be your colorwork knitting coach. She discusses different ways to incorporate color into your knitting projects and shares where she gets her color inspiration.

Episode Transcript

Brittany:
Well, hey there, and welcome to episode 107 of the BHooked podcast. If you’re brand new to the show, welcome. My name is Brittany, and my sole purpose is to be your guide to better crochet and better knitting.

We talk a lot about crochet here, but today we’re going to switch things up a little bit and talk about knitting. It’s going to be a lot of fun, and I’m glad you’re here. Now I know a lot of us here are mostly crocheters, but we also dabble in knitting a little bit too.

Let’s say you are just sort of starting to get your feet wet in knitting, but you want to change things up a little bit. One thing that you can do to incorporate some interest into your knitting projects is to use color. That’s what we do a lot of times for crochet, right? We learn how the stitches mix and match to make different stitch patterns, well then that next progression is to try some color work.

Knitting isn’t so different. I know for me, as a true beginner, I started out with a single color, one stitch project, and then learned another stitch, and then sort of dabbled in different stitches and how they play together, and then moved on to colorwork knitting.

So let’s say you’re at that point right now. I know this episode is going to be a real gem for you because you’ll get to hear from Ella Austin, knitting expert and author of a brand new book called A Beginner’s Guide to Colorwork Knitting, 16 Projects and Techniques to Learn to Knit with Color. Ella will walk you through the different types of colorwork knitting, what is easiest for a beginner, and what might be the next step for somebody who has already tried some of those beginner colorwork knitting projects.

Whatever level you may be, I know there are some real gems here in today’s show, so you’re going to enjoy it no matter where you are on the spectrum of colorwork knitting. Now, if you have any questions whatsoever, or if you would like to provide some tips of your own in terms of colorwork knitting, a great place to do that is over on the show notes page.

Now, of course, you’ll find the information on Ella’s book and where you can connect with her online on the show notes page, but you can also scroll down to that comment section and connect with other listeners of the show. To do that this week, all you’ll need to do is go to behooked.com slash 107 and that’ll take you right to it.

All right, now let’s get into my chat with Ella about color work knitting. So Ella, hi, welcome to the show.

Ella: 3:14
Hello, thank you for having me.

Brittany: 3:17
It’s such a pleasure to have you here. We were connected through sort of like a mutual contact because you have something coming up that’s really, really exciting. But before we get to it, Ella, tell me a little bit about you and how you got into the world of knitting and specifically colorwork knitting.

Ella: 3:37
Right. Well, I’m Ella and I live in the UK in Devon. And before that, I was born in London and moved to Reading, so I’ve moved around in the UK a little bit.

I learnt to knit from my mum and both of my grandmothers when I was very young, so I’ve always been surrounded by knitting and always had that inspiration and that encouragement from them. Despite the fact that they taught me to knit, they didn’t really teach me much about the technical details. They’d just be busy with garter stitch, and I was happy with that, a little bit of stocking stitch or stockinette stitch.

But I didn’t really take it very far until my 20s when I started thinking about babies. And that’s when I actually learned to read a pattern and wanted to develop my skills a bit further.

And at that time as well, I also moved, I was moving back and forth from London to Reading and I decided Reading was going to be my home, going to settle down here. So I wanted to make friends and really settle down and we were starting a family. So I wanted to meet new people and I also wanted to take my knitting to another level because I’d just had a child and I’d stopped working.

I decided I wanted to do something more with my knitting. So I joined a local knitting group called the Outcasts and they were amazing and they really inspired me. And in particular, Suzanne, who set up the group and runs the group, because she also runs arts charities in Reading, she was incredibly inspiring and she taught me or kind of showed me and introduced me into the world of knitting in the round and colour work and all the potential of knitting. So meeting that group was massive.

And I think that was back in around about 2006, 2007. Then shortly after that Ravelry came along, which of course was a massive gateway for all the fibre world to meet each other and be inspired by each other. And that was really encouraging as well.

So yeah, it was mostly the knitting group that introduced me to the techniques and then all of a sudden Ravelry came along and the whole knitting world seemed connected and there seemed to be so much more I could do with knitting. And colour work just always seemed like the thing I was drawn to most and the thing that excited me most.

Brittany: 5:51
That’s really interesting. I’ve heard that before, where knitters tend to start out and they’re really comfortable with garter stitch and stockinette. I was like that, too. I worked several projects just with those two stitches for a long time before I even thought about dabbling in something else.

And I know one of my major hiccups as a beginner knitter and somebody who was learning, well, not having… community around me was part of the reason why I sort of gave up at one point. I tried to teach myself to knit first and it was just a total failure because long story short I was making mistakes and I didn’t know how to fix them and I yeah it was a it was a big big big deal.

And when you don’t know what you’re doing, like when you don’t know what the mistake is, it’s difficult to try to learn how to fix that online. So you don’t know what you don’t know. And the only thing I did know how to do was to rip it out and start over.

And I did that so many times that I just… I lost… any motivation for it at all and I feel like if I had a community around me that could say hey all you did was like twist your stitch here or all you did was split your fiber or you know split the yarn and try to work the stitch with like half of the yarn like I was doing all these really weird things that if somebody could have just showed me I probably would have stuck with it.

So I love the the tip there of trying to find like a local group especially as a beginner. Do you find that you’re still working with them today?

Ella: 7:24
Well, I’ve moved to Devon, so I do miss them, and we keep in touch online. Still good knitting friends, but they’re kind of long-distance knitting friends. It’s not too bad going back to visit from where I am, but I don’t get back as much as I thought I would.

So now in Devon, I’ve finally found another really good knitting group that I go to regularly in Plymouth, so very lucky. And also I work in a wool shop in Exeter. So that gives me a nice real-life knitting community as well. It does help a lot.

Brittany: 7:56
Well, and as a side note here, do you have any tips for somebody who’s trying to find a community? Did you find a group on Ravelry, or did you just go to your local yarn shop?

Ella: 8:08
I think it’s, yes. For me, when I moved to Plymouth, well, to Dawlish, which is about an hour from Plymouth, I connected to someone on Instagram, Katie, who’s now a really good friend.

And it’s just once you make these connections online, it was on Instagram, we both saw that we were local to each other. I think it’s just about being brave and saying yes to things and going out.

And then one thing leads to another and you find more and more opportunities and more and more people, friends of friends. And yeah, you usually find each other once you start. It’s just making the first step to really connect with someone and get together with them. And then it will get the ball rolling and you should meet more people.

Brittany: 8:57
Yeah, good tip. Really just open your eyes and look around. You attract your tribe. That’s how the saying goes. But I think it really is true, especially in terms of… attracting people who are into the same thing that you are and you can help one another and motivate one another so that’s that’s good.

I’m glad we were able to kind of go down that little rabbit trail for a minute but circling back around.

Ella: 9:24
Yeah, it does it does really help when you find them though it feels really good to have that connection with people.

Brittany: 9:27
Yeah and I think that’s really important for beginners and I know a lot of my audience here are complete beginner knitters some of them aren’t some of them are getting into knitting they’re probably pretty well versed in that stockinette garter stitch and they are just exploring other possibilities.

And so bringing it to today now you have this beautiful book and I’m so I’m so thrilled to have a copy in hand as well I just can’t wait to dive into this book and work some of the projects. But this one’s called A Beginner’s Guide to Colorwork Knitting: 16 Projects and Techniques to Learn to Knit with Color.

Can you tell me a little bit about the journey of creating this book?

Ella: 10:13
Yes. Well, I had done some color work patterns myself, and I self-published them, and I’ve been very lucky to work with other really brilliant young companies and shops. So I had quite a catalog.

And then I was approached by the publishers. It was quite lucky because I’m quite local to where they’re based, and they were talking to someone who I’d worked with previously and had suggested me. And so they asked me for some proposals. So I sent some book proposals.

And the first one that I was most keen on doing was a guide to stranded colour work. So it would just be stranded knitting. And then they came back to me and said, could you expand it to colour work knitting as a general topic?

And then I worked on that subject a bit more, which was quite new for me because I’d mostly just really concentrated on stranded knitting. So it was really good to explore the other types of colour work knitting and how one can lead from another and how you can progress through all the different possibilities that there are.

So I started to plan how that could work in a book format, thinking about how a complete beginner could approach the idea of working with colour. And it ended up being really inspiring. The way that the book discusses not just the techniques, but also the potential of working with colour within knitting. It was great fun.

So then I just had to plan it into categories. So I started with simple stripes, then went on to slip stitches, then went on to stranded knitting, which felt like my subjects that are most… familiar with, and we did a couple of other techniques as well.

Brittany: 12:07
Yeah, and I don’t think a lot of people realize how much time goes into the creation of a book. When did this start? Like, when did the idea come about?

Ella: 12:20
Well, I started, I think it was, I’ve been working on the book for over a year, and so I’m trying to recall now it was a couple of years ago I expect probably that I first went to the initial meeting and then we discussed ideas kind of general ideas and I went away gave them some proposals and then I heard back a while later and then I sent a refined proposal and I started to think oh it’s not really going to happen even though I’d like really planned it and was quite eager to do it I thought oh well it was still a learning process and then eventually they came back to me and said yes they’d like to do it and from the point where they said yes which was not last Christmas but the one before they then the ball went rolling really quickly so I had to do a lot of research really quickly about what would be I’d already planned kind of a skeleton of how the book would progress through the different techniques but then I had to really plan the projects and my favourite part of course was researching the yarn looking at all the colours and all the possibilities and how to include a real range of projects as well because we wanted, one of the things the publishers asked me to do was to absolutely go mad with colour, to not hold back, not be too subdued, not be too muted but to really play with colour and make it as fun as possible.

So it was doing that but reining yourself in so it’s still, there are projects that would appeal to everyone. I wanted to make sure that some projects use two colours, some use three, and some use six, seven, eight, even more. and something that would appeal to everyone in the techniques as well.

Brittany: 14:04
Yeah, that’s something that was really apparent to me too, the variety in that. And the reason why I bring up that time frame is really the reason why I love diving into books for learning. Now, traditionally, I’m more of a visual learner and not necessarily from an image. I’m a self-taught crocheter and knitter really from video, from YouTube. And that really is how I learn best.

But I have such an appreciation for books because of what goes into the creation of that. I mean, we’re looking at a couple years in the making, and these patterns have been not only created by you, but tested and graded by other individuals as well. So it’s gone through a lot of different hands.

And I love a book for a beginner who’s maybe not a true, true beginner, like somebody who’s just learning to knit for the first time, but somebody who kind of knows how to knit. They get the idea of it and they’re learning a new technique. So they know that what they’re following has been really tested, really thought about, and I feel like that really sets people up for success.

Ella: 15:15
Yeah, I hope so. Yeah, because I think one of the things about, you know, how when you’re a beginner knitter and you know how to knit and you know how to purl, but you don’t know what to do next, that what this book is hoping to inspire people to have something to do next.

Brittany: 15:31
Oh, and that’s good. That’s really exciting, too.

Ella: 15:34
Yeah, I hope so. Yeah. It’s one of the aims of the book is to inspire people. They know how to knit, they know how to purl, but they kind of don’t know necessarily about the potential of what else they could do. Or maybe they do know. Maybe they’ve seen amazing patterns on Ravelry, but they don’t know how to approach starting to… build up the skills required for these amazing projects that they see.

So this book is kind of filling the gap and hopefully inspiring people to go on to make amazing, colorful projects.

Brittany: 16:07
Yeah, yeah. And I think, well, it’s definitely done that for me. So that’s a win there. But on the topic of inspiration, I know colorwork knitting, even colorwork crochet really, it all starts from inspiration.

And let’s say somebody is maybe just trying to play around on their own. Maybe they’re just trying to work a couple of swatches to get the feel for color work. Is there a way that you recommend somebody find their color inspiration?

Ella: 16:42
Yeah, it really, it kind of depends on the project that you’re choosing to do. because if you’re doing something like slip stitches or stranded knitting quite often there’s a pattern in the colorwork design that you want to show up quite well so you have to think about what colors are going to stand out next to each other and usually that’s a case of having a light color and a dark color so that you that difference in the tone will help pick out the color work of the the pattern of the colour work pattern.

But when it comes to things like the there’s a striped blanket in the book and there are lots of other projects that you could really go mad with colour and pick any inspiration. I think well for that blanket in particular it was a painting that I saw and I loved the colours and the painting was really rich saturated colours and I there were trees and a river and birds and flowers.

And I thought, oh God, I love that. I really love the colours in that. So all I did was put the painting on my screen next to the colour options for the yarn and pick out all the colours that I could see in the painting. So that’s one fun way to start with it.

Another thing is to start from the actual yarn options. You could just go into, you know, if you’ve got a local yarn shop, then that is a brilliant place to really see the colours and see what colours are available and how they look together just by putting them next to each other. That is great fun.

But I also, you really could find colour inspiration anywhere. It’s like whenever it strikes you, sometimes you pick up a shell off the beach and just see the most amazing colours in there and then you hold it against the sky and it looks even more amazing next to the blue of the sky or absolutely anywhere.

One thing that I’m in the habit of doing, which kind of annoys my husband, but I think most knitters or crocheters or anyone who works in fiber or art, when you’re watching a program, you’ll quite often see a fashion detail or a home detail or something that really stands out to you. You kind of forget the scene of what you’re watching and start going, oh, I love that throw on the back of the sofa or something like that.

I will say, hit pause, get out my phone, take a photo and keep that so that I can use that as inspiration later. So I do things like that as often as I can, whenever it strikes me.

I think the important thing is most people will see the inspiration and then let it pass. It’s really capturing it and holding onto it so you can refer back to it.

Brittany: 19:22
Yeah, I love that. That’s a really good tip. Now, I always will point out, my husband and I are watching TV, I’ll usually say something like, did you see it? And he’ll look around at the frame. I mean, he’s pretty well trained now that if there’s any type of… I swear, there are so many crochet and knit throws, pillows, whatever… in TV nowadays that it’s almost like every time I turn around, I’m like, look, look.

But I never take a second to capture that. And so I love that tip. Now, I don’t want to spend too much time on color inspiration because, I mean, really, you could go into a full episode about it.

But one thing I’m a little curious about, and that’s because I’ve done a little bit of research here recently about color theory and that sort of thing. Do you put any emphasis on—For me, I’m kind of structured, super analytical, like to do things right or by the book. And it kind of drives me a little crazy sometimes.

But because of that, I love color theory and I love looking at something, a system that somebody has put in place that really works. And I feel like that could have its limitations because, I mean, what if I just… like you said, found a painting that I loved, and I pulled those pictures, but maybe I didn’t follow color theory.

So I’m curious, do you ever incorporate complementary colors or anything like that into your color inspiration, or do you just pull from what you like?

Ella: 20:54
Mostly I pull from what I like, but I do keep certain things in mind. When I was saying earlier about when you’re doing something with a color work pattern and you want to be able to see the pattern, so say you’ve got a chart, and it’s got different colours. It’s showing you where to use different colours for the different stitches. And you want that pattern, it might be flowers, snowflakes, heart shapes, whatever it is. If you want that to stand out, then you really definitely have to look at the value of the colours you’re using. And that is really quite important.

If you want to be able to pick up the pattern easily, then definitely going for a light and a dark is a good way to go. Because two colours, they can look really different next to each other when you’ve got the wool in front of you and you’re looking at them. But when you knit them together, they blend a lot more than you think they would. So the value of the colour is very important.

Then I do also like to think about, as well as light and dark, I like to think about warm and cool as well. I think that is something that I bear in mind. So I like to use them alongside each other sometimes.

If you want, for instance, the patterns in the book that I started with that were definitely designed to kind of, for playing with colour, the chevron blanket, I try to use, try to alternate between light and dark and warm and cool to get an even balance. So I think it’s about balance as well.

But I don’t think there are strict rules. I think sometimes when you do things that are kind of unexpected it can work out quite nicely.

In the book there is a the cow, it’s a double knitted cow and the colors I’ve gone for do not have a very strong contrast. They’re very very different colors—there’s kind of a pale sea glassy greeny blue color and a warm brownish colour, and that’s an example of where I’ve gone for warm and cool rather than light and dark.

They’re not hugely different. I mean, there is some difference. The sea green is paler, but it makes the effect more subtle, but you can still see the difference in the, and you can still pick out the pattern, but it’s a lot more subtle than if I’d gone for, say, a really pale pink and a really dark purple, then the stranded pattern would show up a lot, be a lot more bold.

So it depends on what you want to emphasize and trying things out is so important as well—just swatching and yeah you can surprise yourself sometimes with things that you don’t think are going to work and then you actually liking it or the other way around you might think ah these are safe options they’re going to look great and then you just it might be lacking something you might want to mix it up a bit and try things out.

Brittany: 23:52
Yeah that makes sense so you would recommend swatching definitely when you pick a color to make sure it works.

Ella: 23:59
Yeah. Yeah. I think swatching can be kind of boring sometimes, but that’s okay. It’s really fun because it’s, yeah, all about trying out ideas and seeing how the colors go together. It’s a lot more fun than swatching just to measure gauge, even though that’s also—

Brittany: 24:15
Important. Right. I think knitters are a lot better at swatching than crocheters, and I’m kind of pointing the finger at myself here. But it’s very important.

Ella: 24:25
Yeah, it can be. And for trying out colors, I think it’s fun.

Brittany: 24:29
Yeah, for sure. Okay, so let’s talk about the yarn a little bit because my mind automatically goes to solid color yarn. So, you know, when you think about playing with color, you’re just mixing colors. But I feel like color work, knitting, and crochet even can span all different types of yarns. We have tonal yarns. We have variegated yarns, self-striping, and that sort of thing. What do you have to say about playing with different varieties of yarn and incorporating them into your colorwork projects?

Ella: 25:04
Yeah, I think I’d definitely recommend it. I would definitely try all sorts of different things. There are, again, there are some ground rules that kind of help, but they’re not always strict ground rules. So if… Like I was saying, you need the tonal difference. If a color work pattern has a chart and you want to be able to see the pattern that’s in the chart, then if you go for a multicolored yarn, that pattern is going to instantly be muddied and you’re not going to see whatever motif you’re trying to incorporate in the pattern.

So if you want to knit something stranded, you can use hand dyed colors and it can look very effective. But it might be a good idea to be careful that you’ve still got, that the yarns we’re using together, there’s enough difference between them that the pattern’s going to show up. It’s kind of hard to explain because you can use the word pattern to talk about the colour of the yarn, but the pattern on the chart, the motif that you want to show, it can easily be lost if the pattern of colours in the yarn are kind of not letting it show up.

Brittany: 26:20
Mm-hmm. Can you explain what stranded is for somebody who’s maybe not heard that term before? That might help put it in, give them a visual.

Ella: 26:28
It’s Fair Isle knitting. And it’s true sometimes of slip stitch knitting as well. It’s quite different from if you’re doing intarsia or you’re doing stripes, or in the book we also have some modular knits as well. If you’ve got big blocks of areas where one type of yarn will be showing, then you can use multicolored yarns and it looks really effective.

But if you’re using stranded or slipped stitches, so stranded like Fair Isle knitting, you’re quite often got a chart with a pattern in it, which involves changing the colors of the yarns in between every two, three, sometimes every other stitch. And that means that if you’ve got a multicolored yarn, you’re not going to see the effect of changing between the two colours unless you’re careful about the ones you select.

Brittany: 27:27
Okay, so it sounds like a really big tip here is when you’re following a pattern, a color work pattern, maybe you don’t love the colors that are listed and you want to incorporate some colors that you like yourself. Are you really looking at the family of it, like maybe warm versus cool or maybe the intensity of it? So let’s say you have a pattern that uses green, pink, and yellow, and maybe you’re not a big fan of those three. Would you try to pull some that’s close to pink that you like, that’s close to green, and that’s close to yellow that you like? Or are you trying to focus in on something else, maybe the contrast between the two? Does that make sense?

Ella: 28:09
Yeah, I think really you can go for any colors you like. You could even, you know, you could go for black, white, and gray if you don’t want it to be too colorful but you want the pattern of the chart to show. And with the multicolored yarns, tonal yarns are brilliant, but it’s when you get the really variegated yarns that it can be a bit tricky depending on what yarn you’re using alongside it.

Okay. It might be a good idea to go for one solid color with alongside a variegated or to go for, if you’re going for multi-tonal yarns, to use them that they’re not too close to each other. So say if you’ve got a red and a pink, they might blend a lot more in the knitting than you think. But if it’s not like a red and a blue, as long as one’s light, one’s dark, it’s going to show the pattern a lot more.

Brittany: 29:01
Okay, so let’s say it’s safe to say then… If a pattern is recommending solids or tonals, you probably want to stick with that in your color choices. And if it’s recommending variegated, you probably want to try to stay in that realm, just so you know that the color pattern will come out and show as vibrantly as it does in the example.

Ella: 29:23
Well, the book does offer advice on that. In each project, I talk about what colors I’ve gone for and why I’ve gone for them, and some suggestions as to what you could… do with them. So there are some ground rules, but again, swatching will really enlighten you, as you were. You go on your journey of trying to find colors that you like together, it definitely helps a lot.

Brittany: 29:48
Yeah, okay, perfect. I just wanted to touch on that a little bit. I know a lot of people have some questions when it comes to making substitutions, and we often talk about fiber and weight substitutions, but not necessarily the color substitutions, so that was really helpful.

We’ve mentioned a couple different types of colorwork knitting, and I kind of want to shift gears a to the project side of things. For somebody who is really just brand new in the world of colorwork knitting, can you maybe list a couple of different, and I know you’ve touched on a few already, but just some of the possibilities, some of the different types of colorwork knitting that maybe they’ve heard or seen before?

Ella: 30:29
Right, well, in the book, we start with stripes because it seems like the simplest one to go with. But even within the category of stripes, there are different possibilities within that. So we’ve done mild knitting. The first project’s a scarf in mild knitting, and that’s holding two strands together. So that’s really good one for trying to see how colours blend together and how they sit alongside each other as well.

Then we’ve got a chevron blanket, which is stripes, but it includes shaping, which makes it into a zigzag shape. Then we’ve got striped socks, which is stripes in the round, which offer different possibilities for how to work. Because when you’re working in the round, instead of working backwards and forwards, you’re going in a spiral. So you need to think about that when you’re doing stripes.

And then we also have an illusion cushion, which is, I don’t know if you’ve heard of illusion knitting, where you do garter stitch for parts of it, and it picks out when you look at it at an angle. That’s really good fun, but it’s still, it’s stripes, but it is almost like a different category of its own as well.

Then we go on to slip stitches, which there is a lot of potential in slip stitches because you can either hold the yarn at the front when you’re slipping the stitch or at the back and that will have a different effect on the fabric and you can add a lot of texture or it could look almost like stranded. So we have some slip stitch projects in the book. They were a lot of fun.

And then stranded knitting. It’s so much easier than it seems. It’s what you get doing it. It’s really fun. And there’s a lot of potential to do lots of patterns and try lots of different effects with that.

Then we also, in the book, we briefly cover intarsia because a lot of knitters are put off intarsia because it can be fiddly, especially if you’ve got lots of bobbins and it can feel like… big puzzle of lots of different colours everywhere. It can be a lot to get your head around. We’ve gone for a very simple use of intarsia in the book just to introduce the subject.

Then we’ve got double knitting which is where you, it’s like stranded knitting but you’re knitting two sides at the same time so your fabric will be double thick and it will be reversible as well. So that was quite fun.

And then in the book we also cover two things which aren’t strictly colourwork knitting. but you can explore possibilities of colour within them, which is modular knitting, for which we have a log cabin blanket. And that’s kind of where you knit a piece and then you pick up stitches and knit another piece, which isn’t a colour work technique at all, really. But when you change colour as you pick up each bit, it’s a use of colour. So it’s good fun.

And then we have Entrelac as well. And that isn’t… strictly speaking, a colour work technique, but you can have a lot of fun with colour with that too. You can either change the yarn you’re using for each part of that. It’s also, it’s another one where you build all the components and then pick up stitches to make other blocks as well. Or if you use variegated yarn, which has got long colour changes, then that can be really effective. You don’t have to change the colour of the yarn and it comes up in a beautiful pattern. So that’s really fun.

Brittany: 34:06
Now, would you say that list is pretty well arranged from easiest to maybe the most difficult?

Ella: 34:13
I think it is, yeah. Yeah, definitely stripes is a good place to start and very good for experimenting with what colors will work together well.

Then the slip stitches is often considered an easier next step because you’re only ever knitting with one color at a time. But by slipping the stitches, you’re moving… where the color appears on the knitted fabric so it’s just as simple as slipping a stitch across and the effect of moving where the colors appear on the fabric that’s a lot of fun and there is a lot of potential to do different things within that and add texture and yeah it can get complicated but it starts simple and then introduces you to more ideas within that.

And then stranded is the one that some people can worry about because you are using two colours along a row. But we start very simple on just doing a straight colourwork tube, nice and easy. And then the next project will introduce a bit of shaping. And then the next project introduces trapping floats as well. And then we’ve got a very simple example of steeking as well, which is a bit scary, cutting and knitting, but it’s also fun.

Brittany: 35:32
Yeah, yeah, I think those are great starting points. So for a true beginner who’s maybe just doing that garter stitch, stockinette stitch, and they’re ready to try something new, then trying a striped pattern is probably, would be your recommendation. And for somebody who has already tried striping before, what do you think their next project should be? Would it be that illusion that you were talking about?

Ella: 36:00
Yeah, well, yeah, that’s a really good one because that gets you used to moving the yarn forwards and backwards because you’re knitting across a row just using one colour and then you bring the yarn forward to purl some stitches to do that ridge that’s going to show the illusion pattern.

And that’s also a good one for starting to learn to follow charts as well because you don’t really need a chart for the project that I’ve included in the book, but I’ve included a chart just so that you can start to see how you could work from a chart.

Brittany: 36:30
That’s another element, too, that I hadn’t even thought of until just now. I mean, with color work, you’re working from charts a lot of times. Do you have any tips for learning how to read a color chart?

Ella: 36:47
It’s covered in the book a bit. I think… Well, it’s covered in the book quite a lot, but I think starting simple is… definitely going to be encouraging. The most complicated chart in the book is a thorn stitch shawl, which is a colour work project. It’s a slip stitch one, which also has a lot of shaping as well. So it looks really daunting.

So if you’re reading charts for the first time, I think start with a slightly easier one and then come back to that one. Because once you get used to following the chart and just seeing how each square represents the action, and you break it down bit by bit, it’s not as scary as the overall entire chart might seem. You just have to think about each step one at a time. And it would be less daunting that way.

Brittany: 37:42
Yeah. I think there’s something to be said too about memorizing it too, especially if you’re starting with an easier one. I know once you get at least the first repeat covered and you get the idea of how things are supposed to flow and where the stitches are supposed to be, I feel like you almost don’t need the color chart as much. You can just sort of read your knitting and change the colors when you know it needs to be changed.

Ella: 38:09
Absolutely, yeah. It’s always good when you get to that point. Definitely helpful. And there are a couple of patterns in the book that are very easy to do that with. I think the brick-stick swashcloths are very easy to read your knitting. And in the stranded colourwork section, there’s a pair of mitts that it’s very… The chart’s there, and it’s useful. But once you’ve done a few rows, you can see all you’re doing is shifting the position of where you’re changing colour along each row. And it’s very easy to memorise.

Brittany: 38:40
Yeah. Now let’s talk a minute about stranded knitting. I know that this is a big roadblock for a lot of people is having more than one yarn attached or using more than one color in a project. Do you have any tips for somebody who is intimidated to work with more than one color or tips on how they can manage holding more than one strand?

Ella: 39:07
Yes, I think… to be honest my main tip is is not to worry and just try it because it I know it can seem really daunting um and that there are lots there’s lots of advice on yarn management and how to hold the yarn and that is also included in the book but if you’re a beginner and you’re worried about how to hold the yarn I would say don’t even don’t even think about how to hold the yarn just as you normally would and pick up the color as as you want it that’s all I ever do.

I don’t I don’t ever, I know that lots of knitters of stranded colour work like to hold the yarn in both hands. I find that more comfortable. But personally, I just pick up each colour as I want to use it and don’t even think about the yarn management myself. But I think that’s the kind of thing, when you’re first starting in stranded colour work, just knit as you normally would and don’t worry. Come back to thinking about things like yarn management after you’re familiar with stranded colour work, I would say.

Because although there is a lot to be said for learning the correct way to start with, I think that if you just do what feels natural and right without worrying about the correct way of doing it, then you can build your confidence that you can do the technique and then think about how to make it more comfortable or faster or whatever you want to achieve after you’re already confident that you can do the technique. Probably not the advice that most people would—

Brittany: 40:40
give. I tend to totally agree with that, though. I have seen people where they, you had mentioned they’re holding a strand, say they’re using two colors and they’re holding one color in each hand, so they’re basically working continental and American style at the same time, and that can seem pretty intimidating, especially if you try to do that first.

I know continental knitting isn’t really natural for me. I know I kind of started out that way as a crocheter. It did. And then as I wanted to speed up a little bit, I switched hands and now I’m sort of flick knitting. But I’ve also seen people who are holding… strand on two of their fingers on the same hand and for me that was just a lot for me to wrap my brain around so I tend to just pick up the color as I need it kind of like you and it does go a little bit slower but I mean I’m enjoying the process so it doesn’t matter if I’m trying to fly or go really really fast. I just pick up the color as I need it and haven’t really found the need to get faster or try to change things. It kind of works for me.

Ella: 41:51
Same here. And I think that’s it. Finding what works for you is the best way to do it. Just do what you’re comfortable with and don’t feel like you have to do it a set way. There are these ways of doing it and it is covered in the book and some people find it really helpful. But for an absolute beginner, I think doing what you’re comfortable with and feel confident with is a good way to start.

Brittany: 42:14
Yeah, I think that’s a great tip to end on there, too. And I want to circle back around to the book. I know we’ve talked about several of the projects within, but so it’s fresh in somebody’s mind. I think this is a great place to start with colorwork knitting. Really, I mean, I feel like it’s a full journey sort of thing.

If you’re going to pick up the book, you’ll start with something really simple. And if you follow it through, you know, all the way, it might take you a year or so to get through all of the projects. But I feel like you’ll be really well versed in colorwork knitting by the end. So where can somebody pick up a copy?

Ella: 42:51
Well, it’s available on Amazon and I hope maybe in your local yarn store as well.

Brittany: 42:56
Okay, and again, it’s called A Beginner’s Guide to Colorwork Knitting. You’ll know it by the bright and pretty cover. And that chevron blanket, man, that, like, jumped out at me. It’s on the cover, and I would love to finish that one.

Ella: 43:10
Thank you. That’s one that, as I was knitting it, I was slightly concerned. I thought, gosh, this is ever so bold. But when I took it in to the photographer, absolutely loved it, and the stylist loved it. So I was really pleased because, yeah, it was a brave choice of colors, but I just– well it’s really fun.

Brittany: 43:27
It is and I probably wouldn’t have thought to pair those colors together but it’s just like you said it’s so eye-catching.

Well, as we wrap up now, where’s the best place for somebody to go to connect with you?

Ella: 43:43
Well, um, I’m on Ravelry and you can see all of my designs. I’m on there as Ella Austin and also Bombella but it’s, um, my designs, they’re all under Ella Austin. And on Instagram, I’m under Bombella Ella, all one word, which is, I was a bit late getting to Instagram, so I didn’t get a particularly good username there, but it’s memorable still. And that’s where I mostly am — on Instagram is where I spend most of my online time and on Ravelry.

Brittany: 44:14
Okay. Well, you’re definitely in good company there. A lot of us here, myself included, and listeners, we spend a lot of time on Instagram. So I will have all of that info in the show notes. So if you are wondering how to spell that or if you just want a quick link to get to our Ravelry page, I will have that in the show notes.

And Ella, thank you so much. I have learned so much from you, and I just can’t wait to dive into this book.

Ella: 44:37
Thank you. I’m really encouraged, and I really hope that I inspire more people to try things and have fun with color.

Brittany: 44:46
Yes, definitely. Mission accomplished, I think, with this book. All right, that was Ella Austin, author of that brand new book, A Beginner’s Guide to Colorwork Knitting.

If you would like to pick up a copy, you can do so on Amazon. You can find the link to that over on the show notes page, bhooked.com/107. And I will include Ella’s Instagram handle and Ravelry account so you can connect with her should you choose to do so.

Today’s episode was sponsored by Red Heart Chic Sheep. Now, I just love working with Chic Sheep yarn because, well, not only is it my friend Marley’s yarn line, but I also love it because it’s a really soft wool that’s affordable and it’s really easy to find. I actually walked into my local Hobby Lobby and there it was.

Marley Bird developed this ridiculously fun range of colors and it’s really perfect for colorwork knitting and crochet. Actually, if you visit behooked.com/chicsheep, that will redirect you to the Chic Sheep page on Red Heart’s website, where you can see all 24 happy colors and plan your next colorwork project.

As a side note, there are 42 free patterns to choose from, ranging from colorwork afghans to cardigans for your boyfriend or your hubby. Seriously, I’m really impressed with this lineup of patterns, and you can find all of that at redheart.com as well.

As we wrap up the show this week, I have one little reminder, and that is about the Crochet Challenge for Warm Up America. If you’re listening to this episode the day it airs on March 14th, you have two days to have your lap blankets, your knit hats, and any other donations you are sending to Warm Up America for the Walter Reed Foundation. You have until the 16th to get those postmarked in order to be eligible for all of those giveaways.

Now, I do want to say a big, huge thank you to everybody who participated in this year’s event. And I also want to thank you for your patience throughout the entire process. The response to this year’s challenge was way bigger than I ever imagined, than Warm Up America ever imagined. And Lovecrafts, the company who was kitting some of the supplies in order to make it a better experience, we just had no idea how many people would be interested and willing to provide a gift for the Walter Reed Foundation.

So thank you for your patience through the little hiccups that we had along the way. I’m super grateful. You know, you can plan and plan and plan and something still comes up. And I want you to know that I am in here in the Facebook group, in the comments, reading your responses. I’m reading through your struggles and I hear that and I use that feedback in order to help make next year’s challenge even better.

I feel like from the first challenge that we had a few years ago, we have made so much progress and there’s still progress yet to be had, right? When you’re organizing something of this magnitude, there are a lot of moving parts, a lot of things to orchestrate, but I’m learning as I go along.

So I just want to say thank you for your patience and again for participating this year. Have those lap blankets, the knit hats and your donations postmarked by the 16th in order to be eligible for those giveaways. And you’ll hear more on the website, on my social channels. So if you don’t follow me on Instagram or Facebook, I would recommend you do so.

You’ll hear about Warm Up America receiving those blankets. We’ll make the announcement for the giveaway on a live stream that’s going to be on the Craft Yarn Council’s Facebook page and I’ll announce that in the Facebook group and on my Facebook and Instagram page as well. So you don’t actually have to be in the Facebook group to see it and then I will send out an email to the winners of the giveaway.

All right, I think that does it for the Warm Up America announcements and again, thank you. I really, really appreciate it.

Okay, so that’ll do for this week’s episode. I hope you enjoyed learning about colorwork knitting, and I hope it inspires you to give it a try. I know for me, it was just a lot of fun to dabble in my first project that incorporated some color. It makes it feel like a completely different project when you’re switching from one color to the next.

And that does a lot in terms of motivation for knitting, right? I know for me, knitting is a much slower process than crochet. And so it takes a little more motivation to fuel me through those projects. And color work is one thing that I incorporated that gave me the motivation to keep going, even though it was growing a lot slower than some of my crochet projects.

Okay, that’ll do for today. Thank you so much. I look forward to serving you in next week’s episode. And until then, have a wonderful weekend. I’ll see you there. Bye-bye.

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