Stiall Hat & The Jogless Join

My free pattern, Stiall, is a simple striped hat.  But, there is a trick to knitting a better stripe in a garment knit in the round - the jogless join.

When working a pattern in the round, it will be interrupted and take a stair step up at the beginning of every round.  In a pattern as graphic as a stripe, this can be seriously distracting.  There are a few methods to smooth out this transition between colors, and I am passing along my favorite tip here.

When it's time to change colors, just begin with the new color.  All the fuss occurs at the end of that first row of color change.  When you return to the beginning of the round, with the left needle pick up the first stitch of the round below (it'll be the old color), and knit it together with the stitch from the current round.


This is something many knitters know, but the real hint is that you then need to move your marker which indicates the beginning of the round to right after this 2-row stitch.  Yes, you will be moving the beginning of your round over by one stitch with every color transition, but for a simple pattern like these stripes it will not make any difference.  Of course, if you are working a pattern that need to align vertically this doesn't work so well.

So, how does this look?  On the inside you'll have a line with your carried yarn running diagonally across the surface.  And on the outside?  Well, it depends.  On my darker version, you can barely see it.  But on the lighter version, it does not disappear into the surface.  I still think it looks better than the interrupted pattern I would have had without the jogless join, so I am sticking with it.