In working a knitting pattern with 2 or more colors, when do you use bobbins;
stranding, carrying, or slip stitches.
Bobbins: A bobbin is a small item, such as a circle of cardboard, wound with yarn. Bobbins are used when you are making blocks of color that stop and are not carried along the full length of the work.
Argyle uses bobbins and each triangle is composed of a single strand of yarn. You would also use bobbins if there was a contrasting color pattern placed on a background of the main color - or if there is a band of color patterns that are too far apart to strand.
Sometimes, like on the SpinCraft Color and
Cable Vest knitting
pattern, you strand with your bobbins.
Stranding means to carry the contrasting color, and main color, yarns along the wrong side of the work, knitting with each color as indicated on the color chart.
You don't want to carry a strand more than 5 sts without catching it in the other color yarn. Some Nordic patterns say you can carry 7 sts, but I think that's stretching it.
Slipping: Slipping can be done with colored bobbles for some pretty neat effects, with different color strands for each row, or with one color to make textures such as honeycomb patterns. In all these patterns you work with one strand at a time "slipping" the sts that will be the other color the next row - or pulling colors up a few rows.
