Mosaic knitting

[Char]

Hello fellow knitters! I am looking to draw on your expertise. :-). I am knitting my first attempt at knitting mosaic with a pair of socks. I normally knit with size zero or one for my sock knitting needs. I started out using a 1.5 needle, and my slipped stitches looked very floppy and sloppy, so I frogged it - here’s a pic:



My second attempt is with a size one, and it is better but still very floppy:



I can go down a needle size again, and add more stitches but before I did I thought I would see if you have any other suggestions.

I am guessing going down a needle size isn’t going to help much.

thanks!!!

[crosstitchlinda]

Have you tried blocking what you've already done to see if it will even out? I do know that the slipped stitches do look a bit different since they cover 2 rows not one.

[knitterlady13]

Char Those elongated stitches behave in the opposite of what we expect. You'd think they would be tighter, but they tend to look looser and a bit gappy. Some of that will even out with washing, but it's really the nature of mosaic knitting. If anything, the slipped stitches tend to make the knitted stitches scrunch up a bit which is why you may not want to knit too tightly.

[crosstitchlinda]

knitterlady13 You've said this much better than I could!!

[Char]

I keep looking at the sample and they are nice and tiny! :-)

[knitterlady13]

Try blocking what you have already knit and see what happens before you frog. Kind of like lace, mosaic tends to look sloppy until it's had a good soak to sort out the stitches. If it's still too loose, then I'd go down another needle size. I often find that it takes a two-size adjustment to make a noticeable difference. Also, your yarn may bloom a bit upon washing and fill in some of the gaps that might be bothering you. (I tend to get a bit annoyed at uneven stitches while I'm knitting, but they almost always block out.

I've done quite a bit of mosaic knitting and will note that it never looks as perfect IRL as it does in the pattern photos (probably due to lighting and the colors blending a bit in the photos), but does tend to even out a bit over time with washing and wearing.