How to do Helix knitting

A detailed tutorial on knitting jogless stripes with the helix knitting technique; plus how to apply it to other patterns

Stripes are a wonderful and easy way to add color to your projects. However, when you are knitting in the round, there will be an odd step whenever you change colors. For bigger stripes (like 3 or 4 rows high), it’s easy to prevent that jog. But if you want to knit truly jogless stripes that are only one row high, helix knitting is the only feasible option.

So, let’s show you what that’s all about!

What is helix knitting?

Whenever you are knitting in the round, you are knitting in an upward spiral. Except you’d cut your working yarn with each round, a tubular project is never a neat stack of closed circles. Whenever you finish a round, you need to drag the working yarn up one level. And this is what causes the jog.

Helix knitting is a technique where you make use of this knowledge. If you knit each round independently with each color and you never let them cross, you will create a kind of double (or triple, quadruple) helix.

To achieve this, the various colors are joined in different places. And then you never quite finish a round with each color, instead, you pick up the other color and knit across that same stretch one more time. Sort of as if multiple knitters were sitting in a circle around a project and knitted simultaneously trying to catch up but never quite achieving it.

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Instructions: How to do helix knitting

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Helix knitting can be done on double-pointed knitting needle, circular knitting needles or the magic loop technique. The basic concept always remains the same and you get to pick the knitting technique you feel most comfortable with. Please be aware that the more colors you join in, the more likely they are to catch the other end of the needles. As a result, circular knitting needles might be easier for beginners.

Active Time 2 minutes

Total Time 2 minutes

Materials

• Any yarn works. I am using the Schachenmayr Catania Grande in this tutorial

Tools

• Any type of knitting needle. I am using the Knitter's Pride Dreamz here

Instructions

1. Cast on as many stitches as you need for your project with the cast-on of your choice in color A, and join in the round.
   
2. Divide your project into equal parts for each additional color you want to join. It's best to use stitch markers.
   
   E.g. I want to add 2 more colors. So, I will place 2 markers. My round has 36 stitches. So I place a marker after every 18 stitches. If you want to use 4 colors, 3 stitch markers, for 5 colors, 4 markers, and so on.
   
   If your stitch count isn't divisible by that number (e.g. 2 or 3), then place the stitch markers as close as possible. Nothing will happen if you are off one or even a couple of stitches.
   I typically move my start of the helix 3 or 4 stitches so the stitch markers will not fall right off the needles.
   
3. Knit across with color A until you come to the first stitch marker and slip the marker.
   
4. Join in color B, knit across until you come to the second stitch marker, and slip the marker.
   
5. Join in color C, knit across until you come to the next stitch marker (this will be the first one that you've placed) and slip the marker.
   
6. Drop color C and pick up color A. It should be still attached to the last stitch before the stitch marker.
   
   Important: Make sure to pick up color A in a way that the two yarns don't end up twisted. Unlike in Intarisa or Fair Isle, you NEVER want to twist the colors when you switch.
   It helps if you put all your skeins in front of yourself on the table. The active skein is always on the left. And whenever you change colors, you lift the previous skein over to the right. If you circle around your skeins like that, you'll never cross them and you never end up with twisted yarns.
7. Knit across in color A until you come to the next stitch marker. Be careful when you knit the first stitch and don't pull on the working yarn too tightly. It's easy to inadvertently close the previous stitch which isn't protected by the barrel of the knitting needles.
   
8. Drop color A, pick up color B (again, making sure that you do not twist the yarns), and knit across until you come to the next stitch marker. Be careful with those last stitches before the marker. It's easy to wear them out. Consider tentioning the tail of color A as you knit them lightly.
   
9. Drop color B, pick up color A, and knit across until you come to the next stitch marker.
   
10. Repeat steps 7-9 until you've reached the desired length. Bind off in Color A and weave in the tails on the wrong side as preferred.
    

Notes

Important note: The start and end of your helix will always be noticeable. While there are ways to kind of disguise it (see below), it's the one drawback you need to live with. As a result, helix knitting is best suited for larger projects with stripes.

If you only need to add 5-10 rounds of stripes, the start & end will be very noticeable. If, on the other hand, you knit striped socks, having 50-80 rounds without a jog, far outbalances the fact there's a little offset at the start.

Tips for better results with helix knitting

What I detailed above is the easiest way to do helix knitting. However, you will quickly notice that it’s not that easy to maintain an even tension as you knit those last 2 stitches before the stitch marker and it’s equally as difficult to not close the previous stitch as you knit the first stitch in the new color.

Here’s what you can do to avoid that:

Step 1: You start your helix project the way I showed you above. You divide your round in equal parts (one for each additional color you want to join), and then you knit across joining in the respective colors as you knit across that first round (steps 1-6).

Step 2/Round 2: Knit across in color A and stop 3 stitches before the next stitch marker.

Step 3: Slip the last 3 stitches before the stitch marker purlwise (point to point) and remove the marker.

Step 4: Pick up color B (again, without twisting the yarns), and knit across until you are 3 stitches before the next stitch marker again.

Step 5: Slip the last three stitches (and remove the stitch marker).

Step 6: Pick up color C, knit across, and stop three stitches before the next color change.

Step 7: Slip the last three stitches and pick up color A.

Step 8: Knit across and stop when you are three stitches before the next color change.

Step 9: Slip the last three stitches and pick up color B. Then knit across until you are three stitches before the next color change.

Repeat these steps until you’ve reached the desired length.

By always slipping the last three stitches before a color change, you can effectively eradicate the problem with the loose stitches. Instead of already being two rows below, the last stitches in the new color will still be protected by the barrel of the knitting needle. So, no matter how tightly you pull, you’ll never cinch the fabric. And if you accidentally wore out the last two stitches while slipping them, a simple tug on the working yarn will get them back to size.

Instead of three stitches, you can also just slip 2 or even 1. While 3 stitches are the safest and will yield the neatest results, you will quickly notice that it will also drastically reduce your knitting speed. For very small-diameter projects, I typically only slip 1.

Important: The start of the respective color changes will continuously move backward with this method. Depending on your in-the-round technique, the stitches you need to slip may fall between the gaps. You need to pay attention and read your knitting as you go.

How to knit 2-row stripes without a jog

A very frequent question I get is: “Norman, can you only knit stripes that are one round high with helix knitting? Or is there a way to achieve 2 row stripes without a jog?”

Technically speaking, helix knitting can only be done with 1-row stripes. However, by employing a simple trick, you can basically use it to knit stripes that are as many rows high as you want.

The idea is simple: You do helix knitting with four colors but two are the same.

Here’s an example:

Your round has 21 stitches and you want to knit jogless stripes that are 2 rows high.

Step 1: Split the round in three equal parts (7 stitches) and place 3 stitch markers accordingly

Step 2: Knit across in Color A until you come to the first stitch marker, and slip it.

Step 3: Join in another skein in color A and knit across until you come to the next stitch marker.

Step 4: Join in the first skein in color B and knit across until you come to the third stitch marker.

Step 5: Join in another skein in color B and kit across until you come to the next stitch marker.

Step 6: From here, you continue according to the regular helix knitting technique. You may or may not stop 3 stitches before a color change and slip the last stitches depending on your preferences.

Note: The start of your stripes will be somewhat staggered. If you want the stripe to start with 2 rows right away, you’d have to do adjust steps 4 and 5 like this:

Step 4b: Join in the first skein in color B and knit across until you come to the third stitch marker, slip it, and continue knitting across until you come to the first stitch marker.

Step 5b: Slip back stitches until you are back at the second stitch marker (the place where you joined in color B).

Step 6b: Join in another skein in color B in the exact same place one more time and knit across until you come to the third stitch marker.

Step 7: Slip around stitches until you are back to the first stitch marker. Pick up color A and start the regular helix knitting process.

Helix knitting with other knitting stitch patterns

If you ask me, helix knitting is at its strongest when you combine it with different knitting stitch patterns. Why? Well, no matter if we are talking about garter stitch or seed stitch, you ALWAYS end up with a visible jog when you knit those patterns in the round. It’s very difficult to avoid/disguise this with other means but super easy with helix knitting.

If you think about it: Garter stitch in the round is nothing else but stripes of knit and purl stitches.

You always knit one round, and then you purl one round.

So, to avoid jogs when knitting garter stitch in the round, you can simply do helix knitting with two skeins in one color! Here’s the breakdown:

• Round 1: Knit all stitches with color A
• Round 2: Join in color B and purl all stitches but stop three stitches before the end of the round. Place a stitch marker, and slip three stitches.
• Round 3: Pick up color A again and knit across until you are three stitches before the stitch marker. Place a new stitch marker, and slip three stitches.
• Round 4: Remove the old stitch marker, pick up color B, and purl across until three stitches before the stitch marker. Place a new stitch marker and slip three stitches.
• Repeat rounds 3+4 until you’ve reached the desired length.

Note: Advanced knitters may skip placing/removing the stitch markers. Since you are working in the same color, it can be easy to miss the transition.

You can apply the very same process to any other 2-row repeat knitting stitch pattern. If it has a 4-row repeat, you’d have to work with 4 skeins in the same color and create fake 2-row stripes.

Knitting stripes in Garter stitch

In the last step, you can combine the two methods to create garter stitch stripes. Here’s the problem with garter stitch: If you change colors in every row/round, the result will not be distinct stripes. The two colors will sort of bleed into each other because the purl stitches are pushing the stitches one row below (and those are in a different color) partially to the foreground.

As a result, stripes in garter stitch always need to be multiples of 2 – at least if you want to avoid that problem. To create jogless stripes in garter stitch, you have to work with 4 skeins – 2 in each color.

Step 1: cast-on with color A.1, divide your round in 3 equal parts, knit across, and join in colors in this order: color A.2, color B.1, and color B.2.

Step 2 (2nd round): Purl across to first stitch marker in color A.1 and slip marker.

Step 3: Switch to color A.2, purl across to second stitch marker, and slip it.

Step 4: Switch to color B.1, purl across to third marker, and slip it.

Step 5 (3rd round): Switch to color B.2, knit across to first marker, and slip it.

Step 6: Switch to color A.1, knit across to second stitch marker, and slip it.

Step 7: Switch to color A.2, knit across to third stitch marker, and slip it.

Step 8 (4th round): Switch to color B.1, purl across to first stitch marker, and slip it.

Step 9: Switch to color B.2, purl across to second stitch marker, and slip it.

Continue in this manner until you’ve reached the desired length. You may opt to slip the last 1-3 stitches (as detailed above) for neater transitions. It really helps if you know how to read knitting. You always alternate between knit and purl rounds. If you see purl stitches below, you knit across and vice versa.

How to fix the beginning/End of the helix?

Helix knitting is fun and at times almost feels like magic. It’s just so invisible and the slight slant of the helix will be all but invisible in a larger project and when seen from afar. The start of the helix, however, can be quite noticeable. So what can you do against it? If you ask me, you have two options:

#1 Cover it up

No matter if we are talking about hats or socks, there are many beautiful ways to create a foldable cuff or brim. In fact, most hat patterns will actually do just that by default for extra warmth (like my hat pattern for beginners), and cute ruffles are not all that uncommon when we talk about socks, either.

So the easiest option is to knit that foldable cuff/brim two or three rows higher. When you fold it over, the start of your helix will be hidden with nobody the wiser.

#2 Hide it with colorwork

Whenever you cannot hide the start of your helix with fabric, you can try to work it into a larger design. One very easy trick that comes to mind is mosaic knitting.

When incorporated into a larger design, the start/end of the helix might be still noticeable to an experienced knitter but definitely not in a bad way.

You could achieve a similar thing with Fair Isle (or possible intarsia, but intarsia in the round is very difficult). Basically, you integrate a short vertical band (3-4 stitches) you always only knit in color A (stitches 10-12 in the example above). This will help to avoid a jog in your Fair Isle pattern as well.

Then you use that “gap” to start your Fair Isle helix by continuing the repeat/design for one more stitch. While it will not be invisible, it definitely will look like a feature. And that’s the whole idea, right?

Anyway, that’s how to do helix knitting. Comment below if you need any further help.