Woolgathers from 320 Central

Candi’s Guide to the Ultimate Montana Summer Road Trip

As a tried-and-true Montana girl, I have the privilege of knowing our state pretty well. I spent my early childhood on a ranch between Browning and Cut Bank, moved to Whitefish in the early '90s, and spent most of my youth there. In high school I moved to Missoula, and after about 5 years moved to Great Falls. After another 5-year stint in Whitefish and a short adventure in Hawaii, my husband and I made our way back to Great Falls to finally settle. I pride myself on knowing the state well and taking advantage of all it has to offer! The gates of the keeping are being opened, and here is my Ultimate Montana Summer Road Trip Guide.*

One thing you might not know about Montana is that the "East Side" (basically over the continental divide) and "West Side" are pretty diverse, both environmentally and culturally. I highly recommend making sure you see a little bit of both!

So… you’ve made hats. You’ve crushed scarves. Maybe you’ve flirted with a shawl or two.

And now you’re staring down the final boss of knitting (or so it seems):
The Sweater.

Let me just say this upfront, sweaters are not some elite, untouchable knitting category reserved for fiber wizards living in the mountains. They are simply a collection of very manageable skills… worked in a slightly more committed format 😉

And I am so excited for you.

So you’ve conquered knit and purl. You’ve made some hats. Maybe a scarf or two. You might even be feeling a little adventurous with cables. And now you’re eyeing colorwork. It looks stunning. It also looks… slightly terrifying. Fabulous news for you, not all colorwork requires juggling five strands of yarn like a circus act.

Enter your first colorwork projects and mosaic knitting. . .

Mosaic knitting is one of our favorite ways to introduce knitters to colorwork because it looks intricate and graphic but is actually incredibly approachable. If you can knit, purl, and slip a stitch, you can knit colorwork and mosaic.

Let’s dive in. . .

Simple Colorwork vs Mosaic Knitting

Before we dive deeper into mosaic knitting, let’s zoom out for a second and talk about colorwork in general. Colorwork knitting simply means using more than one color of yarn in a project to create patterns, motifs, stripes, or graphic designs.

You’ve probably seen it in traditional sweaters with snowflakes, stars, or geometric motifs. That technique is usually called stranded colorwork, where you carry two yarns across the back of the work. It’s beautiful. It’s also where a lot of knitters start to sweat a little.

Managing two yarns at once can feel like learning to juggle while riding a bike. You’re thinking about:

• yarn dominance
• floats on the back of the fabric (A float is a strand of yarn that travels horizontally across the back or wrong side of a piece of fabric while a different color is being used on the front)
• tension between colors
• when to trap floats

It’s totally doable, but it can feel like a lot if you’re just starting to explore color. That’s where simpler colorwork techniques come in.