When you're knitting a jacquard with multiple colours you might end up knitting edges that open up like pockets.
To overcome this issue, yarn colors have to be threaded in the appropriate yarn feeder so yarns get braided at the edge closing it. The idea is to put the colors that we want to be knitting on the edges in a high yarn carrier number (so further to the back), this way, when they are parked after knitting, other yarns with lower yarn carrier number will cross and be parked in front of it. This crossing of yarns right after the knitting area is what braids the edge.
As an example: below you can see the full piece from the pictures above.
This is a five-color jacquard sample. We can see in it large patches on the edges with 3 different colors; white, blue, and red. The open edges were fixed by changing the colors with the following scheme:
- Yarn carrier 1: draw thread
- Yarn carrier 2: black
- Yarn carrier 3: white
- Yarn carrier 4: yellow
- Yarn carrier 5: red
- Yarn carrier 6: blue
This way, white, blue, and red cross with black when parked.
Originally this piece did not have a black border on the sides. This meant that 3 different colours would be used at the edge for large portions of the piece. There wasn't a way to solve the open edges only with the arrangement of the yarn carriers, so we also created a 1 stitch black border and we assigned the black yarn to yarn carrier 2.