Ladderback what???

My first encounter with the ladderback jacquard LBJ technique was back in 2023 during one of my weekly dives, deep into the wierder and wonderfuller end of the not-very-dark web where knitty geeks post videos of cool techniques they use to make their knitting better.

I watched a video which showed a woman with burgundy nail polish, knitting a large checkerboard pattern. She was knitting her floats instead of catching them. This one definitely passed the cool, useful and relevant test. I pasted the link into that week’s Purls of Wisdom.

I was making good progress on a fairisle cardigan at the time, but it had those unmistakable puckers where I was catching the floats and occasionally also the tiniest hint of the contrast colour showed through the fabric from behind. All flaws which Burgundy Nails Lady said would be fixed with LBJ so I made a mental note to go back and watch her video again. But not for the first time, I got let down by the poor indexing in my mental filing cabinet. The LBJ instructor got buried until long after my lumpy yoke was finished.

And that was that. Until a couple of years later when I got a call from Wendy Peterson, suggesting the Ladderback Jacquard swatch she’d been making could be a really useful technique for other knitters to learn. Should we do a class?

Why Yes! Of course we should! If you think it’s a good idea Wendy, it’s sort of a good idea by definition. Also I vaguely remember thinking I’d like to learn it about 3 years ago. I’m sure there’s a mental note in that rusty filing cabinet upstairs in my woolly head.

But can you just remind me why it’s worth learning a new way of doing stranded colourwork when everyone’s been happily catching floats for the last hundred and eighty seven years. Why would someone want to learn how to knit their floats instead of catching them?

Thankfully, Wendy was more than happy to answer..

“One amazing thing is that you’re not ruffling your fabric in the same way. Even if you’re careful with your floats and even if you make sure not to do the them in the same column of stitches row after row, you still do get that slight puckering.“

“There are two kinds of puckering: One when the float’s not long enough. And another where you see the float color on the front…and then also more subtly when you catch in a float, you make a small ripple even if your float is long enough, you see it.“

This puckering that Wendy’s talking about will be familiar to anyone who’s used stranded colourwork in their knitting, and it comes down to the physics of the knitted stitch, which makes it virtually impossible to have the same tension across stitches as strands. Stitches have an elasticity built into them which isn’t there in the unknitted strands we float across the back of our knitting when we do stranded colourwork. As the floats are periodically ‘fixed’ to the fabric where we catch them and switch colour, the difference in tension creates puckering. Our normal way out of this is to be mindful of keeping float lengths generous, so that when we block the knitting, there’s enough give in the strands for everything to smooth out. And this all works up to a point. But it has become apparent that it’s not great for fish. Specifically Halibut.

Wendy explains..

“There just are designs that you see the float. And if you’re going to catch in your float, it’s just a bit sad looking, compared to if you use LBJ. Like the fish in the Halibut one, or the leaves in the Polina sweater. Those floats are going to come through, in the distortion of the fabric. And in the colour.“

“And it doesn’t need to distort . With LBJ [the contrast yarn] is literally making a separate piece of fabric at the back, and once you know what you need to do, it’s relatively easy.“

So what is actually happening with LBJ? Each contrast colour float along the back of your knitting is periodically knit together with the float below, so the floats are held in place with elastic-rich stitches to themselves. Instead of your stranded yarn getting pinned to the fabric and creating visible pucker points, LBJ creates a separate layer of laddered mesh on the back.

Wendy says, “you’ll be able to see straight away how it’s it’s basically two separate fabrics that you’re making. If you took it to its full extent it’s double knitting. LBJ is a kind of simplified double knitting.

It sounds tricky. I’m assuming we start with a simple flat swatch of a big fish?

Where’s the fun in a simple swatch? Actually Wendy would never ever say that. What she actually said was, “The thing is, LBJ can really help with stranded small circumference knitting, because you can always anchor, just before before and just after you [magic loop] turn. By anchoring in this way, the strand is always a nice length for the float distance, and it’s not at all a problem with the small circumferences.‘

And that is how Wendy Peterson’s Ladderback Jacquard tulip mitts became. It is also why they are almost as beautiful on the wrong side as the right side.

You can learn the Ladderback Jacquard technique with Wendy Peterson on Sunday 17 May and Sunday 20 September.