Jogless Join for Knitting Stripes in the Round

So you're knitting in the round and you wanna make stripes. And because knitting in the round is essentially a spiral, what happens is the colors don't line up perfectly. And we call that a jog, and we don't like the jog. So I'm Mary Beth Temple for The Knitting circle, and I'm going to teach you how to do a jogless join, that is going to make your striped projects in the round look amazing. So, let's go ahead and get started. First off, let's talk a little bit about knitting in the round. Now, when you knit in the round, you're essentially knitting one giant spiral, and that is why we have to mark the beginning of the round because otherwise you wouldn't know where it was if you didn't leave yourself a marker. Now, when you change color, what happens is there is a slight difference in the elevation of the new color, and that is called a jog. Now, this one is not particularly obnoxious because I'm using two shades of gray with not a whole lot of contrast between them, but say I was using circus colors or something like that, something with a lot of contrast, those jogs get super annoying when they pile up on top of each other. Now, there are a few different ways to address this. This is the method I like best. So you're going to knit your first round with the new color. Oh, I have an escapee. You're going to knit the first round with the new color just the way that you always would. And you're coming up to the end of the round. Now that last stitch is a little loose 'cause it's not woven in. I'm not gonna worry about that. It's just a little bit loose and that's fine. I'm going to slip the marker, now I'm going to bring the back leg of the stitch that I have knit into, up onto my left-hand needle tip. And I'm going to knit those two together, and you will note that there are two different colors. And that brings that stitch up from the round below and helps eliminate that jog, while also knitting the first stitch of the round, which I want to do. Now, that is super hard to see with the stitch marker in the way. So let me put another round on this, and then I'll come back on camera and show you what I mean. For this particular hat I'm working in five round stripes. So I went ahead and finished that straight. But once again, here is the join with the jog. Do you see it? And then here is the one that I did on camera, no jog. So I'm gonna show you the jogless join one more time. I've done my first round in my new color. So I'm coming up to the marker. I'm not worrying that that last stitch is loose. I'm gonna tighten that up when I weave it in. I'm gonna slip the marker. I'm going to bring the back leg of that stitch in the old color, up onto the needle, and then knit two together, the old color and the new color, and then go on my merry way. That one little trick is going to make all of your striped projects in the round look amazing. It's super simple to do, go forth and make stripes. I'm Mary Beth Temple here for The Knitting Circle. Take a look around, see what else there is to see, and thank you so much for joining us. Bye-bye.