How To
Confident Knitting: Wild About Vikkel Braids
Welcome to the fifth lesson in the Arnall-Culliford Knitwear Confident Knitting series that pairs must-knit patterns with video tutorials to expand your repertoire of skills. This year, we’ve already covered the joy of folded hems, catching floats with ease, blocking for excellence, and embellishing knits with embroidery. It’s time to get wild.
Today Jen demonstrates how to work Vikkel braids for a pop of graphic and dimensional wow you can adapt to frame stranded colorwork motifs in your favorite patterns.
The Basic Braid Maneuver
It turns out that this bit of cleverness is similar to repeatedly working a 1 over 1 Left Cross Cable across a round. If that sounds complicated, observe just how brilliantly simple it is.
Hover over the video progress bar at the bottom of the frame to see how Jen has neatly labeled each part of this lesson that includes setting up, working, and neatly finishing off 0ne-color braids and two-color braids.
And we’re thinking, “Wouldn’t these be sweet framing the cuff design of Mary Jane Mucklestone’s Trinket Mittens or the motif of the Stranded Diamond Hat by Thea Colman?”
The More Mittens the Merrier
Designer Lily Kate France’s sweet and subtle Burnished Mittens (Confident Knitting Ravelry page) are this month’s featured project.
The K3, P1 rib snugs up these mittens for a form-fitting look and feel. We love the houndstooth plaid of the colorwork band here.
Jen likes Organic Studio Sock, Rustic Fingering, Nomade, And 80/20 Sock from the MDK Shop for Burnished mittens. One each of two colors will Yield two pairs when you swap out the MC and CC for the second pair.
How to Get in on Confident Knitting
Jen and Jim Arnall-Culliford have assembled everything you need to join the fun right here.
And the conversation in the Arnall-Culliford Knitwear Knitalong Hub is never ending and full of help.
(We will have the print book available in September, but we really hope you’ll jump in now and support Jen and Jim. They are a tremendous part of the knitting world, and we admire what they’re up to so much.)
This is brilliant!
Genius! I. Saving this for sure.
I have done Vikkel Braids before but encountered enlarged sts on the right needle. That didn’t happen here, so I may have to retry this technique!!
Just a little trivia … A plaid is a blanket. What you mean is a tartan.
A tartan is a registered pattern whereas a plaid is a pattern that hasn’t yet been registered. So all tartans are plaid but plaids are not tartans until registered. So the above use is correct.
Are Vikkel braids stretchy?
So much easier than a Latvian braid, which is the only type I’ve ever done. I’m wondering, if you set up with alternate color stitches, and used 2 colors of yarn, could you get the two-color effect of a Latvian braid? That would be extremely cool, because I love that look but don’t like how twisted the yarns get as you do it. Experimentation is in order!
Wow. Just. Wow.
Thank you so much for this marvelous tutorial!
Fabulous! Hope to try both this and Latvian braids on a SMALL project one day. Sort of a “how’d they do that”? kind of feature which always fascinates me. (Normally I try to keep my knitting VERY simple since I have a short attention span. But I can see a small e-book including videos of “magic” techniques like this. Jen seems to be the person who could do that. And I would pay good money for it, too!). And the mittens themselves are stunning!
Lily Kate is such a talented designer (and a throughly lovely person). Love these mitts!
Love this! Thank you!
I was able to make these mittens, and it was fascinating to see the braids forming. Definitely a project that required sitting at a table and full concentration, but the instructions made sense and it looked great.
Wonderful tutorial! Now, could we have a tutorial on unraveling and fixing mistakes on vikkel braid? I had to rip out my first effort because I could not get the stitches back on the needles correctly after an error. I recommend lots of natural light and your complete focus when first attempting this braid. My second effort was a success!