What is helix knitting?

If you want to incorporate some colour into your knitting project, stripes are a brilliant way to achieve this. However, if you are knitting in the round with stripes, there will always be an occasional odd step that occurs whenever you change colours.

It can be relatively straightforward to minimise this change in larger projects containing stripes that are more than three rows high. However if you want your project to include seamless stripes, using the helix knitting technique is often the only way to achieve this.

An Introduction to Helix Knitting

As this Victoria and Albert Museum article explains, knitting in the round has a long history. When knitting in the round, you are essentially knitting in a spiral moving upwards. However, as your working yarn is cut with every round, a tubular project will never be a uniform stack of complete circles. When a round is finished, the working yarn is pulled up a level, which is what forms the jog in the line.

Using this knowledge, it is possible to knit each coloured round independently without needing them to cross over, which creates a double, triple or even quadruple helix.

To achieve this technique, you’ll need to join the various colours in different places. This means you won’t ever finish a round with each individual colour, as you’ll pick up a different colour and knit all the way across the stretch again.

It might be helpful to picture a number of knitters sitting in a circle who are all knitting at the same time and trying to catch up with the person in front.

Top Tips for Helix Knitting

Any yarn will work for this technique, including DK yarn. DK yarn comes in a range of colours and tones, a selection of which can be viewed on the websites of yarn specialists such as https://www.woolcouturecompany.com/collections/dk-yarn.

Helix knitting can be completed using circular knitting needles, double-pointed knitting needles or using the magic loop technique. Circular knitting needles may be best for beginners, particularly if you want to use a number of different colours, as this will prevent catching.