Have you ever tried mosaic knitting? It’s a really fun and super easy colorwork knitting technique. You should give it a try, for sure (me saying)!
Mosaic knitting is truly the best kept secret of colorwork knitting. With mosaic, we are working just one color at a time. It’s a bit like doing stripes, but the effect is waaaay more intricate-looking. How cool is that?! That’s what I love about mosaic knitting: It’s really easy to work and makes it super easy to reach maximum effect, almost effortlessly! And you can “wow!” all your friends with your mosaic projects! 🙂
How do we do that? With mosaic, we work knits with one color, and the stitches of the unworked color are just slipped. Yes, slipped! That means: You do nothing with them; you just transfer them from one needle to the other. It doesn’t get easier that that, does it?! …Well, maybe not knitting is easier 🙂 but we don’t do that, right?! 😉
What about the pattering, then? All those beautiful lines of colors are created by carefully placing the worked stitches and the slipped stitches so that they create a geometric pattern. With the cowl shown above (or any other design of mine), I’ve done the work for you: You follow the chart or the written instructions (whatever you find easier to follow) and the colored lines will fall into place.
The Jigzag cowl shown on the picture is worked with mosaic knitting. Jigzag is inspired by the play of lines, light and contrast in architecture, with its apparent jigsaw puzzles of surfaces and openings, lines, corners, zigzags, and junctions. Jigzag is worked with easy and fun mosaic knitting using two colorways, one of which being slightly variegated for extra depth and variation, and it also features a few stockinette stripes with textured lines that serve as an attention grabber and create a special touch for the cowl.
You have what it takes to knit mosaic, really! First of all, all my (mosaic-knitting patterns), Jigzag included, come with a whole bunch of tutorials to help you along. I filmed those to show you the stitches and techniques, and to give you tips. I also show how to unknit things, in case you need it, and how to fix some common mistakes. Take the time to watch those tutorials; you can knit something else at the same time (we’re multitasking crafters, right?! 🙂
Want more mosaic-knitting tips?! Well read on!
With mosaic, like any knitting stitch pattern, you do have to pay a bit of attention to your knitting. With mosaic, mainly it’s paying attention to the following: Do not to work a stitch that should have been slipped and do not to slip a stitch that should have been worked. So: Don’t knit on auto-pilot! 😉
In that sense, it’s not different from creating a textured patterning with knits and purls placed at specific spots. If you stack the stitches as intended, the patterning will align properly. Just take it stitch by stitch (as always!). And if you spot a mistake, congratulate yourself! Mistakes belong to knitting as much as yarn and needles do. Just go back, re-knit, or fix it with duplicate stitch afterwards!
The most important trick is to look at your knitting carefully every now and then to see if you are still on track. I personally use the wrong-side rows to double-check my work (especially if I’m knitting while being slightly distracted by other things going on around me) and see if I have placed those colored stitches in the correct order. On a wrong-side row, the stitches in the color you’re not currently working with should be slipped. If one of those is not at the spot you expected it to be, you might have a sneaky mistake on the previous row. So stop and double-check that to catch those mistakes early and put you back on track!
Dive right in! Mosaic knitting is super fun! Have a look at the mosaic-knitting patterns in my pattern shop; they all come with a mosaic-knitting tutorial to get your mosaic ball rolling!