Fixing the Dreaded Jog

A big problem when knitting stripes or colorwork is the dreaded jog.  Knitting circularly creates spirals that stack on top of each other.  The pattern staggers where each new spiral begins:

The jogtechknitting.blogspot.com

The pattern I used for the Peerie Flooers hat had the jog smack in the middle of every other flower.  I neglected to take photos of my hat before fixing it, so here's another knitter's example:

The jog

What it should look like

(L) the main design

(R) the jog, destroying the continuity of the design and making knitters everywhere sad.

I didn't want to live with wonky flowers so ripped out 3 of the 4 flowers and reknit them.  I used two techniques in conjunction to eliminate the jog.

Line showing the start of round

For the flowers I simply moved the start of the round over 4 sts at the end of each flower.  Instead of knitting half a flower at the beginning and half at the end of each round I knit the whole flower at the end of the round.  This is a well known technique, nothing special there.

When it came to the crown section I changed strategies.  I slipped the first st of the round, then knit it per the previous round's chart the next time it came across my needle.

My other strategy: often in the chart the first stitch of the round is the same color for two or more rounds.  When this was the case I knit the first st of that color in the first round and slipped it on the second round.  When the chart called for knitting 4 sts of the same color in a column I knit it the first round, slipped it the second, knit it the third, slipped it the fourth.  The slipped stitches did elongate but I was able to tighten and even them out manually, and they really blend in after blocking.

In the photo above the crown motif at center has the start of the round running through it.  I can hardly tell and i know where it is!  The line stops in the middle of the motif for better visibility.