The Yarn Stranding Guide

THE REVIEW

I recently learned how to knit Fair Isle and quickly moved through two projects using a two-handed method. (For those who are unaware, “two-handed” means that you knit the main color in your primary method (Continental/English) and the contrast colors using the other method. I’m a thrower by training, but also know how to knit Continental, so I keep the main color in my right hand to “throw” and keep contrast colors in my left hand for “picking.”) The third project in the class, however, called for using two contrast colors, with occasional rows requiring all three colors be used at once. I initially attempted mimicking the instructor, stranding the two colors over my left finger, but they kept tangling, and I found myself repeatedly dropping and re-tensioning my yarn. It was doable, but frustrating and time-consuming.

Enter the internet. I did a little searching for Fair Isle tools, and I stumbled across yarn stranding guides. I did a little more searching, and I discovered that they come in several different materials. As I’m new to Fair Isle and still learning, I went with this option as a first introduction to using a guide primarily due to cost.

INITIAL REACTIONS: The tool arrived about a week after I ordered it, via USPS.  It fit fairly comfortably on my finger. I was a bit worried about quality (as it is made of plastic), but it closes well, and yarn slides through fairly well.

THE TEST:  For this test, I worked on a pair of Fair Isle fingerless mittens. There is one row in the cuff that requires all three colors be used together, and then it repeats every 3-5 rows in the hand and the thumb sections. Each color repeats at least every two rows, so it doesn’t make a lot of sense to drop and then pick up the color at the end of each round. The yarn stranding guide made this whole process significantly easier. As I made my way through the round, I let the non-working contrast color simply slip over my finger, which got it out of the way while I worked with the two colors in that round. So, at a minimum, it didn’t slow me down at all. I did need to retension the non-working contrast color at the start of the next round, but that was simply achieved by simply grabbing the working end and tugging on it; I did not have to drop both colors and retension altogether.

The guide really showed its stuff when it came to those three-color rounds. It was really simple for me to grab the correct color yarn, make my stitch, and move on to the next stitch. The yarns did not get tangled up, and I was able to maintain a fairly consistent tension across both yarns without a lot of effort.

My one hesitation with this yarn guide is that I’m not confident I would use it with a more delicate or easily-snagged yarn. The plastic snagged periodically on the worsted-weight wool yarn I was using. While the yarn was not damaged and I am quite pleased with how the mitts came out overall, I think I would want to work a swatch with a more delicate yarn before committing to using this particular yarn stranding guide.

An internet search does yield a few other yarn guides on the market that are made out of metal, but I don’t know that I would invest in one unless I was doing stranded knitting rather consistently. I intend to learn intarsia and stranded double-knitting in the next year, and I expect that this yarn guide will be useful for those as well.