Teaching is often about human factors. How do you make something unintelligible instead understandable? Knitting patterns have this same challenge. How do you tell someone else what you did in enough detail to be replicated, but not so much detail as to overwhelm? One of the techniques I teach occasionally is two-pattern double-knitting. This technique allows you to have two different patterns on each side of your fabric, instead of a reversed negative. The most common use of this technique is to put lettering into a project. The challenge is the charts. A regular double-knitting chart looks like this: And produces this: The chart that makes the letters read correctly looks like this: And produces this: Right away, you can see the chart for this technique makes your eyes cross. You must follow the chart carefully, mindfully, to produce the desired result. I recently stumbled upon a better method for these charts. A friend had been working on this ...
Late last year my sister discovered Outlander . It is one of those book series/television series that "has legs" as they say. The first book was published in 1991, 35 years ago. It seems people continue to discover it, read it, watch it, and become enthrauled by Diana Gabaldon's talented storytelling. As for knitting, there is an Outlander Knitting official book . I do not own it. There are many, many things I want to knit. That particular book didn't have anything that caught my fancy. I haven't watched the television show, although I read the first three books more than a decade ago. In the television series there is a cowl made from large yarn in garter stitch. My sister sent me a picture and said she would like it. This was an easy knit for me; and something I was delighted to do. Sadly, my friendly local yarn shop did not have any super-bulky yarn in the color and size I sought. I ended up purchasing two skeins of Yarn Bee Effortles...