Math4Knitters, Crafty Living: Show 12
This week's topic sounds pretty simple, but, as usual, can branch off in as many directions as you like.
Double knitting, conveniently, can serve several purposes. You could make a seamless tube with it. You could work two seamless tubes at once, working in the round. Or, you could make a double-thick, double-sided fabric with it. The best use of this last purpose, in my opinion, is in two-color knitting.
Using double knitting, you can make one piece with two sides, where on one side, the main color is, say, white, with the pattern color in black. On the other side, the piece would by a white pattern on a field of black. Also, as Alasdair Post-Quinn taught me, in our interview, this form of double-knitting can be much faster than the other style, because you can work all of your stitches on one row, instead of taking two passes across the needles to make one row of knitting. Also, your two patterns need not match. You could have, say, a snowflake on one side of a piece and a sun on the other.
A muggle's exposure to double knitting is most likely to lie in Leo Tolstoy's "War and Peace". In the book, Anna Makarovna, the nanny, knits a pair of stockings, one stocking inside the other, and pulls the second one out of the first when finished. It is presented as sort of a magic trick, and I think it would certainly feel like magic. If I tried it, though, I'm sure I would have at least one or two places where the two pieces of fabric would be interlocked, so the stockings wouldn't be very useful to anyone. Stephanie Purl-McPhee, a.k.a the Yarn Harlot, mentions this possibility in her book "At knit's end: meditations for women who knit too much." The unfortunate side-effect of this literary show-off is that some people actually think this would be a normal way to make a pair of socks. The odd thing is, I think it would only be really, truly impressive to someone who already knits, and, thus, might know some of the pitfalls involved.
If you want to try this magic trick, there is a 4-page leaflet is available from Schoolhouse Press, detailing the method involved.
I didn't knit one sock inside of another this week. Instead, I monkeyed with making seamless tubes using double knitting. With permission from Pamela Grossman, I made fingers for her wonderful top-down, from-the-knuckle gloves, Knucks. To make the fingers, you use one color of yarn, and it takes two rows to create a round of knitting. If you imagine your 12-stitch round, for example, and instead of working on it for four stitches at a time on three double-pointed needles, you divide it into two sets of 6 stitches. Now, imagine that you have put these two sets of stitches onto two different needles. Line the needles up, and, on a third needle, take one stitch from one needle, and one from the other, until you have all 12 stitches on one needle. To make a small tube, you slip each stitch that faces away from you (and, thus, looks like a purl) with your yarn in front of the needle, and knit the stitches that look like knit stitches.
You could also work your piece inside-out, and purl each stitch that looks like a purl and slip, with the yarn in front of the needle, stitches that look like knits. The advantage of this setup is that you can, if you are careful, slip a stitch and purl the next stitch in one fell swoop. The disadvantage is that the gauge may be far looser than what you are used to for that needle and yarn combination, since you will be purling every stitch, instead of knitting, and for most people, this is a bit more loose.
To try out the inside-out method, I am knitting a little bunny, to celebrate spring. If I finish and photograph the bunny before March 21, when this show comes out, I will include it. Otherwise, I will publish it on the show's blog as soon as I finish it.
Note: I am just starting on the bunny, so it will likely appear on this blog next week.
Interview
This week's interview is with Alasdair Post-Quinn, a self-described double knitter. Also takes me to school, so you might enjoy hearing that.
Links
Schoolhouse Press's Anna Makarovna leaflet
At knit's end: meditations for women who knit too much
Knucks pattern from Knitty
This is the sort of Mobius Scarf Alasdair mentioned.
Reversible Two-Color Knitting by Jane Neighbors
Alasdair Post-Quinn's Website
The Crow Scarf is available on his website and, also, on Ravelry
Four Winds hat by Alasdair Post-Quinn, in the Twist Collective
His article in the same magazine about double knitting
It's A Purl, Man Podcast - Drop by and check out his show. It sounds like he needs some encouragement.
2010 Uses for Gauge Swatches
Number Eleven - To try out/test your gauge with various kinds of double knitting.
