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Double knitting is a way of creating a piece of knitting that is flat on both sides.
Meaning you never see the purl bumps from anything.
It’s the V knit stitch on both sides.
And it’s a pretty interesting technique.
I’m going to show you how to do it with two colors, so that you end up with a look
that’s like this, where it’s the opposite on the two sides.
First, let’s take a look at this piece here.
This is a Harry Potter book scarf, is what it’s called, a Harry Potter bookmark.
And if you want to find this pattern, it’s not my pattern, but if you want to find this
pattern just search for Harry Potter and “book scarf” on Ravelry and I’m sure you’ll
find it.
But this is a good way of showing you what double knitting looks like.
We have the flat knitting on this side, in these colors. Ravensclaw, which I did an online
quiz and found out that was my house, and then everything’s the opposite on the other
side.
The technique’s pretty cool. We’re going to go through that right now.
I have two colors of yarn here, and I’m using worsted weight yarn and size ten and
a half needles.
Ideally, I would want to use smaller needles with this weight of yarn, but because I’m
demonstrating I’m going to use these bigger needles.
To cast on, make a slip knot out of both strands of yarn together.
And we’re going to alternate – whoops. What I really need to do is make my slip knot
further down because we’re using a long tail cast on. There we go.
I’m going to alternate each color using the long tail cast on.
And if you need a review of the long tail cast on, I’ll give you a link right here.
I’m going to start with this cream color and cast one on, and then switch to the blue.
And then the cream color.
And the blue.
And you want to cast on an even number of stitches.
You’ll follow your pattern.
How many do I have here? That’s one. The first one counts as one because that’s double
stranded.
So that’s two, four, six, eight, nine – and nine is fine, because the last stitch that
I cast on I’m going to do double stranded, like that.
Okay, you have to remember that the first and last are double stranded, that counts
as one, and each one between is just single stranded.
Now when you start this, you start a row, you always slip the first stitch as if to
knit.
I should tell you, there are a lot of different ways of starting double pointed knitting with
different cast ons. This is just my preferred way.
Now I’m going to knit the next stitch. You see that I have a blue there?
With both strands of yarn in back I’m going to knit the blue.
Now I’m going to pull both strands forward, and purl the cream color.
Both strands back to knit the blue.
And forward to purl the cream color.
[cough]
Now I’m glad I didn’t cast on very many, because this is kind of slow going.
The last stitch of every row, you always purl. Double stranded – remember.
Okay, that is what the rows look like.
We’ll do this next one.
You always slip the first stitch knitwise, double stranded.
And then you’ll see that my first stitch here – the next stitch is always knit.
And I have to knit with the cream color this time.
Both strands forward to purl with the blue.
Both strands back to knit with the cream.
Sometimes I can really get on a run with this where I’m holding the yarn just right, and
I don’t have to keep separating the two strands.
Okay, and then the last stitch you always purl, and hold it double stranded.
Now what we have here is kind of hard to see because, like I said, I would want to use
smaller needles if I was really working on a project.
But we have a cream side and a blue side.
And it’s knit on both sides.
Now when we’re looking at a pattern like this – well, this effect would give me a
solid, um, strip of knitting with no pattern in it, of course.
When you’re looking at something like this, it’s pretty interesting the way this works.
You see the first two rows here are done just like I did, then the pattern starts.
And when I knit this book scarf, this comes in a chart that you’ll be reading.
So the first one is knit the gray, and then you would purl the blue. Because whatever
happens on this side, the opposite happens on this side.
And when you’re knitting this side and purling the opposite stitch, the purls become this
side.
Does that make sense? [laughs]
So, whatever you see on the chart, like this is gray, blue, blue, blue, gray, gray, gray,
blue, blue, blue.
When you knit a gray, you always purl a blue.
When you knit a blue, you always purl a gray.
Knit a blue, purl a gray. Knit a blue, purl a gray.
Knit a gray, purl a blue.
So it becomes kind of a mind twister while you’re doing it.
Because the chart only shows one side, and the opposite side is just the opposite of
what you’re doing.
Whatever color you knit on this side, you purl on the other side.
It’s pretty fun. It’s kind of a brain twister like I said, it keeps you on your
toes.
So you won’t be drinking any wine while you’re doing a chart in double knitting!
[laughs]
But it is a pretty fun technique.
[music]