Changing Colors in Reverse Stockinette or Ribbing

In the middle of my Chauntecleer Cowl, the colors are switched so that the contrast color with the narrow stripes becomes the main color. When I was designing this cowl, I had a decision to make at this point. The contrasting stripes are done in reverse stockinette. If I were to continue the reverse stockinette at the color change, I would have gotten an effect that I did not like, similar to the following: 

This is the reverse side of another project, but the lines of the pink overlapping the grey would have been very similar to what would have happened if the Chauntecleer Cowl transitioned colors during the reverse stockinette portion. So instead, I inserted a knit row at the color change and then did another purl row--in essence, changing the reverse stockinette to garter for just one round. Although there is a slight difference in the reverse stockinette vs. garter, the color transition works much better than it would have otherwise.

So what if you're working on a project and there's a color change in the middle of reverse stockinette or ribbing? Take a look at this sweater I made several years ago:

This is the right side of the sweater, the public side--what everyone sees. See how the color change is not neat? Even though I love this sweater, it bothers me every time I wear it and see this clunky color change. What could I have done differently?

Instead of continuing with the ribbing on the first row of the color change, I could have done a solid knit row. In a field of ribbing, a single row of stockinette at a color change is a lot less obvious than what appears in the picture above. It's a much more seamless transition.

Now, you probably don't want to do that if you have very thin stripes (such as just 2 rows of each color) in ribbing because then it would make every other row a solid knit row and that would show up. But if you have thicker stripes like in this sweater, the solid knit row at the color change trick is super helpful. Give it a try next time you have a project like this and see what you think.

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