Working Yarn Tension

This week's tip is about tension. Tension is so important in knitting and keeps each stitch looking the same.

Tension is the resistance put on the working yarn. If your tension is tight, it's because the working yarn is held tightly, and it makes the stiches smaller, and the work can be very stiff to knit. If your tension is lose you allow your working yarn to run freely. The stitches will look loose and everything you knit will turn out a tad bigger than you expect.

If your working yarn fluctuates between loose and tight, your stitches will look randomly sized. The stitches will be higgledy-piggledy and won't look neat.

Part of the problem can be caused by your ball of yarn. I like to use Stylecraft Special DK, but that doesn't come in 'balls', so the yarn doesn't pull off freely.

You could use a wool winder and make a yarn cake of the yarn you are using. I do this when I am working on a part that calls for double thickness yarn, but to do this every time I came to knit would be time consuming.

What I do is I unravel some yarn from the main ball so that it won't have to rely on me tugging at every stitch to release some yarn. This way the tension on my working yarn stays constant and my work looks neat.


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