With the support of my good friend and accountability partner, over the last year I have been gradually adding the individual patterns from Stranded Knits to my website for purchase here. Last week however I added a free one; the Enid headband.
I published Enid as a free pattern because it is a small item that makes an excellent practice project for learning stranded colourwork, a technique I want to share with as many knitters as I can. Hence the pattern includes an illustrated tutorial for two-handed stranded colourwork, the technique I use and which I recommend to knitters who ordinarily knit in the English style, ie holding the yarn in the same hand as the working needle (for most folk this is the right hand).
The Enid free pattern also includes an illustrated tutorial for a little-known technique that makes finishing a fairisle project much less onerous than it can be, namely spit-splicing. With this method new colours are joined in by making a felted splice. This obviates the need for weaving in yarn ends, which can number in their thousands in large fair isle projects. As taught in the Enid pattern, the technique is worked in such a way that the colour change takes place at exactly the right point in the knitting, which is why I often refer to it as ‘precision spit-splicing’.
