Here is the second "Tech Talk" from Jude Skeers, our guest in October 2015. As noted in the first Tech Talk article (posted January 15) he has sent these articles to Roisin to be shared with us.
The article was first published in the Australian magazine yarn which you can see at the store.
If you haven't tried Double Knitting, Jude includes a pattern for a headband at the end. Only 19 rounds...
Double Knitting
By
Jude Skeers
Double
Knitting is the knitting of two layers of fabric at the same time on one set of
needles. Double Knitting can be tubular (and as such can be used to knit the
arm of a jumper); it can be sealed at one end (to knit pockets on a cardigan or
coat) or sealed at both ends. Double knitting can be knitted flat, knitting
back and forth on straights needles, or it can be knitted circular.
The
most concise definition of Double Knitting comes from Rae Compton in The Illustrated Dictionary of Knitting (1988),
“Double knitting, or the knitting of separate layers of fabric, both sides of
which show stocking stitch, can be worked with a special combination of slipped
stitches and yarn held to the front.” Compton recommends doing Double Knitting
on either double pointed or circular needles. The use of one, or more than one,
coloured yarn would have an influence on the choice of needles to be used.
Mary
Thomas in Mary Thomas’s Knitting Book
(1938) refers to Double Knitting as “A Tubular Fabric constructed on two
knitting pins.” Belle Meyers in Knitting
Know-How: An Illustrated Encyclopaedia (1981) refers to the weight of
Double Knitting, “You can knit stitches that are of double thickness. Such
stitches can be used to make heavy jackets or coats without using bulky yarn.”
In
a row of Double Knitting only half the stitches are knitted. Every second
stitch is slipped with the yarn passing down the centre of the fabric. The
fabric created by Double Knitting is usually stocking stitch. This doesn’t
always have to be the case. It is possible to use any combination of knit and
purl in a double knitted fabric. In the case of knitting the sleeve of a
jumper, it is possible to knit a rib pattern for the cuff.
A
variation on plain Double Knitting is sometimes referred to as Two Coloured
Reversible Knitting. The first book on Double Knitting that I added to my
library was Jane F. Neighbors’ Reversible
Two-Color Knitting (1974). It details all aspects of two coloured
reversible knitting including two coloured Double Knitting. Not all the
patterns in Neighbors’ book created a double thickness fabric, but the chapter
that does is titled Reversible Geometrics.
All of her double knitted patterns
use two colours. She uses the technique to bring the colour at the back of the
fabric to the front and vice versa. You can use this method to knit a red tree
on a white background and on the reverse side have a white tree on a red background.
She doesn’t have separate colours on each side but brings the colour from one
side through to the other. This negates the pocket that usually occurs with
Double Knitting.
Compton
writes, regarding two-coloured double fabric, “a pair of double-pointed needles
or circular needle make it possible to work a double fabric with one colour
used for the one side and another used for the other side or lining. Although
both sides are quite separate, the ends are joined.”
A
recent publication is M’Lou Baber’s Double
Knitting: Reversible Two-Colour Designs (Schoolhouse
Press, 2008). She writes, “Double knitting creates a reversible two layer
fabric; both sides show only knit stitch. The purl side of the two layers face
the inside, and there are air pockets between them...When you work a two colour
design in double knitting, the two layers are interchanged at each colour
change. Because you use both colors to work each pair of stitches, there are no
strands across the back of the fabric.”
Double
Knitting is alive and well on Ravelry. A simple search of the words Double Knitting results in 72 pages,
which includes the full gambit of patterns. I have found Double Knitting to be
excellent for the bands on hats. I first started using this technique in the
early nineties and I have been using it since that time. I have been able to
use the technique to knit a hat band that will not stretch out of shape and
become too loose. I have found very few other uses for double knitting, as I
have found it to be too heavy and inflexible. I have included with this Tech
Talk my design for a double knitted headband.
Yarn 2 balls of different coloured 12 ply yarn
Needles and notions 6mm (US 10) OR 6.5mm (US
10.5) 40cm circular needle
Abbreviations MC=main colour; CC=contrast
colour; wyif=with yarn in front; wyib=with yarn in back; sl=slip
Head Band
Using
MC and circular needles cast on 88 stitches. Join to work in the round being
careful not to twist sts.
Round 1:
(CC) *wyif, P1, wyib, sl 1, repeat from *
to end.
Round 2: (MC)
* sl 1, wyib, K1, wyif, repeat from * to end.
Rounds 3-7: as
rounds 1-2 (finishing round 1)
Rounds 8-9: (MC) as round 2.
Rounds 10-16: as rounds 1-2 (finishing round 1)
Rounds 17-18: (MC)
as round 2.
Round 19: (MC)
*wyif, P1, wyib, sl 1, repeat from * to end.
Cast
off loosely
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