
Hello! I was only going to write a short post today, about colour dominance in stranded knitting, but I seem to be incapable of writing short posts somehow. Looking through my photos I realize that there is much more to share. We’ve had some beautiful, clear, frosty mornings this past week, and I just have to show you a few pictures.

The railings of a bridge we crossed on one of our walks were covered in a furry white coat of ice needles.

There is a wafer-thin layer of ice on the smaller waterways. Daytime temperatures are far too high for a safe ice floor for skating on to grow.

But temperatures are low enough throughout the day for wearing mittens, and the Selbu mittens I’ve just finished come in handy.

Colour dominance in stranded knitting
The first time I knit a similar pair of mittens was long before the internet, and I didn’t have anyone to tell me how to go about it. While I was knitting them I discovered that it makes a difference how you hold your two yarn colours. I always hold one thread in my left hand and one in my right hand. I found out that the colour I hold in my left hand pops out/is dominant, while the one in my right hand forms the background.
I’ve knit a small swatch to show you what I mean. In the bottom half of the swatch below I held black in my left hand and white in my right hand. And in the top half it was the other way around, with white in my left hand and black in my right hand.

Makes quite a difference, doesn’t it?
So how does this work? Looking at the back of two-colour knitting, you can see that there is always one colour that takes the shortest route, while the strands or floats of the other colour sort of come up from under that and take a longer route. It’s the colour that takes the longest route that is dominant. Recapping:
- If you’re holding one colour in your left and the other in your right hand, the left-hand colour will be dominant.
- If you’re holding both of your yarns in one hand, the thing to do is look at the floats at the back of your knitting and find out which one takes the longest route – that’s the dominant one.
- Keep the same colour in the same hand/position throughout your stranded knitting project for a consistent result.
For my Selbu Mittens, I wanted the black to really pop out, and held that in my left hand.

Different cuffs for men and women
Traditionally, Selbu mittens for men had cuffs with colourwork similar to that on the hands, whereas women’s mittens had either the zigzag cuffs I used or striped ribbed cuffs. Below, two pairs of women’s mittens in Selbu Bygdemuseum:

Which float to pick up for increases
While knitting these mittens I made another discovery – it makes a difference which float you pick up when increasing (M1L or M1R). For the thumb gusset below right, I picked up white floats for making a stitch, and for the thumb gusset below left, I picked up black floats. I don’t know if it’s very clear in the photo, but picking up white floats results in a kind of steps along the sides of the gusset (blue arrows), while picking up black floats gives a smoother line (red arrows).

What I’d do differently next time
This time, I used the same needles throughout. Next time I’d go down one or two needle sizes for the cuffs.
What I’m inordinately proud of
How the all-over pattern on the palm of the hand continues on the thumb, so that you can hardly see where I picked up the thumb stitches.

Pattern/yarn/needles:
- Pattern: Damevott med vrangbord eller blondekant #5 from the Selbustrikk booklet described in this blog post.
- Yarn: Rauma Garn ‘2-tråds gammelserie’ (175m/50g), 37 g shade 401 natural white; 27 g shade 410 black
- Needles: 3 mm/US 2½ circular (using magic loop technique)
Mittens are great little projects and I can see myself making more in the future. Do you ever knit mittens? What is your favourite pattern?
