If you’re a bit of a perfectionist, you love the perfect circle. You might have seen this shape in nature with leaves and flowers or something you design for your home. Wool is an inherently circular fibre–it helps designers achieve a circular shape.
There are many benefits to being circular in your knitting. Circularity can improve the stability of a stitch, keep the fabric snug against your skin, and prevent holes from forming in your knitting.
When you work a stitch in a round, the working yarn and the stitches are physically connected. This connection makes it easy for both yarns to slide over each other, resulting in fewer wrinkles or holes when your knitting is finished.
The stability of circles is often compared to that of cables in lace knitting from the early 20th century.
The Circularity Theories
Wool is popularly known to be one of the oldest and most versatile fibre materials, making it an ideal choice for knitting circles.
There are indeed many theories on how to achieve circularity in knitting, but some of the most popular include the following:
-Cast-on and bind-off techniques can create a tight tension around the stitches that keeps the fabric from stretching out of round.
-Knitting in the round with a larger needle creates more stitches per inch and is thus more likely to create a circular fabric.
-Wool yarn stretches more than other types of yarn, which can help to create a smooth, even surface on which to knit.
Tips for achieving more circular designs with wool
1. Start with a basic square or rectangle, and enlarge it gradually until it’s the size you want. Don’t worry about perfect symmetry–as long as the final product looks circular, you’re good to go!
2. Use a knit stitch to create a uniform circumference around your shape. This will keep your fabric from stretching and distorting during the knitting process.
3. Add extra stitches at regular intervals to create a slightly denser fabric. This will help to hold your shape and make your design look more pronounced.
4. Use different colours and textures to make your design pop. You can also actively experiment with different stitch patterns to add visual interest.
Challenges in Making Circles with Wool
Making a perfect circle with wool can be difficult, but a few tricks can help. One of the most important things to actively remember is that wool fibres exchange tension differently, so you’ll need to adjust your needles frequently if you want a consistent circumference.
Another challenge is that wool knits tend to be elastic, often stretching out during the knitting process. To prevent this, keep your stitches tight and pull the fabric towards you as you work to keep it in shape.
Finally, it’s essential to pay attention to the stitch pattern you’re using- some circular knitting patterns are more difficult to create than others. If you’re having trouble getting started, try looking for a helpful tutorial online or in a book.
Wool is indeed a very soft and warm material used for various projects. It also makes the perfect circle. It indeed takes up much less space than other materials when creating a circular shape.
Because it has a lot of giving (meaning it stretches easily), you can create a very tight-knit circle without having to use any extra stitches (or even fewer stitches than usual).
And finally, because wool absorbs moisture well, your circles will stay dry even if they get wet.
