Angles on Color: Technique: Duo-Colored Lateral Braid

Last time, we talked about how to do a lateral Braid. And this little detail just asks to be done in a contrasting color. Problem is... if you just take a CC, and work it like shown the last time, this is what you get:

Not exactly what we wanted, right? But there is a way to make it look neat. It's harder to work, especially if you are, like me, a tight knitter. But it's possible.

You'll need:

your working needle
your working yarn
CC yarn
darning needle

First off, we start with a M1r - just like last time - but this time, it's the first stitch done in CC. Place it back onto the lhn (left hand needle).

Insert your rhn (right hand needle) into the back loop of second stitch as if to knit. But this time, we are not knitting it! This stitch is the one that would form the next round of stitches, which we are trying to avoid this time.

Swing rhn around to the front, without dropping stitches from the lhn.

Knit into the front of first stitch on lhn, using CC.

And drop both stitches from the lhn.

Place CC stitch back onto lhn and start on the next pair of stitches with inserting your needle into the back of second stitch.

This is how it looks like after we have done a few stitches... Tricky, but worth the effort, isn't it?

Work braid until one stitch before end of round.

Now, the end of round is a little more complicated than shown last time, but not really hard to work. If you don't mind cutting your yarn, you could also close a monochrome braid this way - and get a perfectly seamless join.

We need to drop the last braid stitch from the needle, cut CC and pull on the dropped loop until the end slips through. Thread yarn through darning needle.