Several of my recent patterns have “floats.” Floats are traditionally the strands of yarn carried *behind* the fabric in knitted colourwork. The unused colour travels behind the currently worked stitches while not in use.

Sometimes floats are carried across the front of the work for a decorative effect. My Making Waves Booties have a simple, and easily memorizable, 4-row pattern with individual slipped stitches having the yarn floated in front of them.

If you tend to be a tight knitter, floating the yarn can cause your finished object to be a little snug. Sometimes this can be overcome by consciously not carrying the floats too tightly, but sometimes you need a little trick to help you out! I have a new pattern recently released: Gather Booties. This one has sets of two slipped stitches with the yarn floated in front. One of my clever test knitters came up with a brilliant solution for this potential issue: adding in a yarn over after the float:

sl2 pwise wyif, yo (up over needle to the back, then under needle back in position to purl) …. Next round, just drop that yo off the needle when you come to it.

Thanks for the brilliant and simple tip Jodi! (Find Jodi on Instagram and Ravelry)

Gather Booties were released August 18th, 2022.