This year I'm teaching "Legible Double-Knitting," which is a subset of my old
"Practical Double-Knitting" class. Whenever I teach for TKGA, I review and update my
handout and samples. In this situation, I took a piece of a class and
made it a stand-alone lesson. I added in some new material. I needed a new swatch.
The obverse side of my swatch has the letter "k" for knit five times. The blue letter is on a white background. The reverse side has multiple options.
From top to bottom:
- random
- identical
- legible with inverse colors (Rik Schell's method)
- legible with inverse colors (traditional method)
- normal non-legible double-knitting
The piece of this swatch that excited me the most is the identical section. I wasn't confident it would work. I gave it a try because failed experiments often still result in learning. Seeing why something fails can help you understand why something else succeeds. In this case, I achieved something I didn't think was possible. You'll notice the edges are a bit wonky at that spot. The blue yarn runs all the way to the selvedge and wraps the white yarn, but it doesn't create any stitches near the selvedge. It reminds me a little of how a weft yarn can show as a dot of color in a warp-faced weaving.
I'll be teaching both the traditional method for reversible words and Rik Schell's method, which I mentioned last October in my post about the dragons' lore scarf. Rik's method allows you to freely improvise, which is what I did at the very top. If you are a newbie double-knitter, I hope a swatch like this encourages you toward further exploration. Double-knitting is magical in a way few other knitting techniques can match.
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