Knot Knecessarily Known Knitting

The title of this post is a mouthful! One of the themes running through my knitting life this year has been double knitting. For those of you who are regular readers, this is no surprise. I enjoy the challenge of double knitting. I also enjoy the finished result. Knitting can often have obvious right and wrong sides; and I love that double knitting can be a way to make something that is beautiful from every direction. Earlier this year I finally succeeded in purchasing a copy of the expanded 1994 Schoolhouse Press edition of Notes on Double Knitting by Beverly Royce . Most knitters think of double knitting as mirror-image positive-negative patterns in a thick fabric, such as the example below. Beverly instead explored tubular double knitting. What is that? Tubular double knitting is using double knitting techniques to create tubes or pockets. "Regular" double knitting uses two yarns on each row. In fact, it is a great way to reproduce patterns that can be reduced to...

I've been doing a lot of travel lately, including Fiber Forum, STITCHES South, Maryland Sheep and Wool, and Middle Tennessee Fiber Festival. Thus, the time gap on the blog. I did want to share my current experiment. This is an alternative method for attaching i-cord. It uses Rick Mondragon's sliding loop intarsia technique combined with Gwen Bortner's method for picking up reversibly on an edge. I've talked about Rick's technique before . To knit up on an edge reversibly, Gwen picks up by knit 1, yarn over rather than all knits. The yarn overs create a second layer of fabric. Gwen's method is especially suited to transitioning to 1x1 ribbing, double knitting, or brioche. I'm also knitting back backwards and I'm working the 6-stitch i-cord using Beverly Royce's method for tubular double-knitting. In this case, I am working left to right alternating knit 1, slip 1 with yarn in front; then working right to left alternating purl 1, slip 1 with yarn in ba...