Knot Knecessarily Known Knitting

My reputation for bizarre knitting being what it is, I've been asked by both North Georgia Knitting Guild and Atlanta Knitting Guild to teach a little bit about how to double knit. For NGKG, I'll be teaching a mini-workshop at our Beat the Heat Retreat on Saturday 21 July. AKG was planning on having a program on double-knitting later in the summer, and originally it was going to be during a month when I couldn't attend. But that changed. So on Thursday night, I'll be presenting a program on double-knitting to AKG. This works out fine, as I got my act together and knocked out the project and handout for NGKG. The NGKG VP of Workshops, Mary, asked me to come up with a knitted soap sack as our double-knitting project. This is a really easy project for double knitting. And it doesn't take a lot of yarn. I used about 12 yards each of two colors of Lily Sugar 'n' Cream, which is a basic kitchen cotton. This would be an easy project to kit up for a guild. The ya...

Well, my first published pattern is moving out into the world. The Serpentine Short-Round Scarf was in the STITCHES South Fashion Show on Friday evening. If you were in the market on Saturday or Sunday, you could acquire the pattern with purchase of the yarn. The booklet will be published later this summer, hopefully in June. I do want to be good about pattern support. If you purchase one of my designs, I want you to be able to work through it all and to be able to do so using the sort of subtle detailing that a long-time knitter would use. I want you to have a beautiful product you wear with pride around knitters. Because I enjoy playing around with construction and technique, this scarf is knit in the round and shaped using short rounds, rather than short rows. It is also a type of double-knitting, this being the slipped-stitch variety. You only deal with one yarn at one time, working across the needle in knit one, slip one. I have given you a cast-on and a bind-off that...

It has been more than four years since I've taught double knitting. That's a real shame, because it is so much fun to do and so much fun to teach. This is one of those techniques that is a real delight because people think it is so much harder than it is. Students come into the class nervous or unsure, and leave feeling like they can work magic. It is wonderful. For my class in May, I've chosen to make a less-intimidating sample by working the chart for the "Ukrainian Tiles" afghan. The book is Comfort Knitting & Crochet Afghans by Norah Gaughan, Margery Winter, and the Berroco Design Team (New York, NY: Stewart, Tabori & Chang 2010). I don't really need an afghan book, but this one has some delightful and interesting patterns. Because afghans are large empty canvases tossed around the house, there is a lot of opportunity for playfulness in stitch pattern and color. After all, an afghan doesn't need to pass the same fashion wear-ability...