They said it couldn’t be done …

A tribute to Edward Gorey

… or to be more precise, I said it couldn’t be done, in any practical way, on page 124 of my book. However, unlike most politicians I could name, I’m not afraid to admit I was wrong. So here you have it — true double-knitted cables with negative-space movement. It can be done without a cable needle easily on 1×1-pair cables; 2×2 or 2×1-pair cables are more challenging but still possible, but once you hit cables involving 3 traveling pairs, you’re going to need a cable needle. This is just an exercise to prove it can be done, but it’s going to require me to work out some new vocabulary to explain how I did it. Click here to see the opposite side.

As I’m sure you can tell, this is a subtly-modified version of Barbara Walker’s well-known twining trees pattern from one of her Treasuries, but done in DK with two colors and using lock-stitches instead of DK garter stitch. The yarn is Regia 4-ply, left over from the 52 Pickup scarf. I think that if I had it to do again, I’d use smaller needles. This is done on #3s. The tension needs work but it’s still a good proof of concept.

In other news:

  • Extreme Double-Knitting got in the top 3 Ebooks of Fiber Beat’s best of 2011
  • Due to pressure over time, I finally signed up to Pinterest. You can start following me but I haven’t pinned anything yet as of this writing.
  • I had a great workshop weekend at Fresh Purls in Providence, and am looking forward to another at WEBS next weekend. This weekend I was supposed to be in Salem at Seed Stitch, but had to cancel due to low turnout. We’ll be rescheduling that weekend to later in the season, so if you’re on the North Shore and want to take one of my workshops, keep an eye on my calendar.
  • Parallax v0.5 is officially at least halfway done — I’m adding 2 new skeins now — so those who are waiting for a new simple scarf pattern from me are almost done waiting.

4 thoughts on “They said it couldn’t be done …”

  1. With your encouraging email in late Jan, I set off to do the twinned trees as my first double knit project – but it took me until yesterday to finish! I wasn’t quite sure how to cast off and decided to visit for more sage advice (your 4 winds videos really helped me out getting started) I’ll post a photo on ravelry soon as I figure out binding off (ok may be breaking down and buying a copy of your book now). I worked in thicker yarns and bigger needles (7’s) – and two short circular needles instead of the cable needle – FO is more like 12 or 13″ square. (hoping to block it to 14 x14) This piece really made me fall in love with DK. I’m curious to see how a less symmetric pattern would translate to doubling.

  2. (binding off – do you have a bind off that matches your double long tail cast on? is it in Extreme Double Knitting?)

  3. Wow. I admire and enjoy doing tricky work “to see that it can be done” as well, but I don’t know that I would’ve been brave enough to go here. Fantastic tribute, inspiring work. : ^ )

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.