Category: Knitting

It’s been a while since I’ve spent time actually working on a new technique to incorporate into a pattern, and it’s both as exhilarating and time-consuming as I remember it. This one is doing double-duty as a set of samples for one of my upcoming workshops at Interweave Knitting Lab, but I’m pretty happy with the results so I wanted to show it off. Also, I’d love some feedback if you feel so inclined.

As you may (or may not, I won’t judge) remember, I released a pattern a while ago using double-knit openwork. It was part of a book by Artyarns, and as such I think it didn’t really get the wide exposure it probably deserved. In retrospect, releasing a brand new technique in a method that requires that I sign away all rights to the pattern was probably not my wisest move. Fortunately, the pattern, while fun to knit and a great excuse to play with yarn I would probably never otherwise have been worthy to lay my hands on, was not the best use of openwork in the world and I was sure I could do better.

Unfortunately, I didn’t. I let the technique lay dormant for a while — and in the meantime, I got one-upped by someone else who independently developed their own technique for double-knit openwork. I’m happy that pattern came out — because it opened more eyes to the untapped possibilities of double-knitting, and that’s my bottom line — but part of me feels I should have been more proactive, and gotten double-knit lace out there faster (and bigger, and better) than I did.

But it’s all water under the bridge now. The best I can do is to show what I can do with this technique. So without further ado, here are a couple of samples, done in Anzula Dreamy. The colors aren’t perfect here — it’s more of a spring green and dark tan — but you get the idea.

These are mockups for an eventual cowl. Obviously, there will be more repeats in both directions, and I need to play more with needle sizes to get the best lacy-ness while keeping the stitch definition clear. So why are there two? Well, actually there are three but the third is still on the needles. These two showcase two separate ways of processing yarnovers, both with their pros and cons. The third way is single-sided — the holes show up only on one side but the colorwork shows on both.

The one on the right uses “standard” double-knit yarnovers, which are easier to process and result in a very nice and solid fabric since the two sides lock together at each yarnover. The resulting fabric shows the opposite color as background for both sides, but working it causes the ends to twist once around with each yarnover. Here, the color changes offer a chance to untwist the yarns as you go, but there are more YOs than color changes so you’re stuck untwisting manually every now and then.

The one on the left uses “reverse” double-knit yarnovers — and when you encounter them on the next round, you need to work into the back loop for both stitches to keep the hole nicely open. This method does not lock the fabric together at the yarnovers, which results in more visible holes all the way through the fabric since the two sides are free to move. Here, the color changes offer places where the fabric locks together to keep the entire fabric from separating.

The third way has a similar structure to the one on the left — in that the two sides end up disconnected — and solves the issue of having no background to the holes by making no holes on the opposite side. However, it’s not quite as reversible so you need to make your color choices carefully.

This is why, when I teach Double-Knitting Lace and Openwork, I let people practice all three methods — any of them can be easily done off a standard lace chart, assuming you know how to translate from single-sided lace to your chosen method of double-knit lace.

There is a fourth method that’s similar to the third and even cleaner, but it will require recharting (and some new chart elements as well).

I’m inclined to use the second method (the one on the left) because it reacts better to yarnovers directly after colorwork, and the rhythm of the TBL stitches is easy enough once you get used to it. But here’s where I ask for feedback — what do you think of the pattern? Too complex? Would you (want to) knit it if it were cowl-sized? Or should I go back to the drawing board?

If you’re interested in learning double-knit lace and openwork, I’ll be teaching in Manchester at the Interweave Knitting Lab — and probably not again until next season.

In other news:

My Craftsy Class has hit 6000 students as of this morning! Thanks everyone — now let’s see if I can hit 7000 by the end of the year!

There’s a list of independently-published knitting books on Goodreads that Shannon from Cooperative Press has been asking people to vote on. I have no idea what the votes are good for, but go check it out and vote for my book, if you don’t mind. It can’t hurt :>

If you’ve been following my progress for the past few years, you may have heard that, back in early 2012, I released an ambitious double-knitting pattern called “52 Pickup“. Sales have continued to trickle in as equally ambitious double-knitters buy the pattern.

In time for the winter holidays in 2012, I decided to release a very limited pressing of the 52 Pickup pattern in book form, and compiled a few kits as well. I had been touring around some of the big shows with this pattern and along the way it caught the eye of Sally Holt, author of Knit Companion.

Sally was gathering presenters for the 2013 kClub, a series of webinars and KALs, and asked me to present — alongside other luminaries Cheryl Potter, Cat Bordhi and Lucy Neatby — a new and exclusive version of 52 Pickup. I set to work designing one.

Now that the kClub is over, it’s time for the new 52 Pickup to come out of hiding. The kClub Edition pattern has smoothed-out lettering, new card backs and a wealth of new yarn and gauge options to give you more ideas about how to use the card charts in new and creative ways. You can read more about it on the pattern’s Ravelry page.

Everyone who bought the original pattern (those who bought it digitally on Ravelry as well as those who used the Free PDF code inside the pattern book) should have gotten a code to get the new version for more than half off the normal price. If you didn’t get the code, let me know and I’ll check my records.

For anyone who hasn’t gotten either of them and wants both, you can add them both to your Ravelry cart and use the code “blackjack” to get a hefty discount too.

Finally, since the demise of WePay and the advent of my new website, I have relisted the original pattern book and kit on Etsy, if you want to help clear space in my apartment. As before, both the book and kit will get you a free download of the original PDF, and I will send you a separate email with a discount code for the new pattern as well.

In other news, all of my workshops at Interweave Knitting Lab are full enough to run, but since I get paid more the more people who sign up for the class, I’m going to need to continue to shamelessly self-promote. That said, please consider signing up for my workshops at Interweave Knitting Lab! I’m teaching at least one of every workshop I offer, and I will be debuting two new classes, Double-Knitting Lace and Openwork and Double-Knitting Cables! Read more about all of my workshops on my website.

One of the perils of being a newly-successful (for some values of successful) knitting designer is that people see your work and say “Hey, I want to get in on that”. Shortly after my book came out, yarn companies, publications and even shops began to see my work and said “Ooh, we’d love it if you designed something for us!”

And I was flattered, and I said, “Sure! I’d love to!”

So if you’re wondering why I haven’t been designing much lately, that’s why. I got bogged down in design contracts, and put my own work to the side. The Parallax eBook had literally been pushed aside for more than a year, while I designed things for yarn companies and other folks. I’ve always put a lot of stock into keeping one step ahead of the crowd, so that you’ll always have something to learn from me, but I’ve been stagnating a bit and I need to get back to what’s important to me — pushing the boundaries of double-knitting for the benefit of the knitting community at large.

Now don’t get me wrong — I did the contracts because I was interested, not because I felt forced into it. I wanted the opportunities, I wanted to get my name out into other areas of the knitting world, and I wanted to get out of my niche a little bit. I designed things that were (gasp) not double-knitted! But I took gambles, and in some cases I lost. The pieces were mostly good, but they didn’t reach as far as I wanted them to. They didn’t help expose the rest of my work all that well. But I’m glad I did them. And I’m also glad that I’m not going to be doing as many from now on.

All that said, I’m pretty proud of the last one I designed. Back in early 2013, I was invited to teach at the Knitting Boutique in Maryland, under their “Famous Knitters” program. I was flattered, of course, to be considered famous enough for that. While I was there, Dianna (the shop’s owner) unveiled a bag of new yarn samples — a new line of yarn she was going to be releasing in the Fall. I gravitated, naturally, to the one which was a BFL and silk blend. Dianna, for her part, gravitated to a sample I had brought with me, which I use to illustrate double-knitting cables. It is, of course, based on the iconic Barbara Walker “Twin Trees II” chart. Dianna wanted me to do a cowl in her new yarn, based on that chart, but simpler. I told her I’d be able to start designing in January, when the rest of my contracts were done, and I did. Also, in another first for me, I contracted a friend who has test-knit for me in the past to sample-knit this time — saving me yet more time to work on other things.

The pattern isn’t released yet (sorry) but I wanted to show it off before I mailed it in. As soon as it’s ready for primetime I’ll let folks know. I assume they’ll be selling it online as well as in the shop, but we’ll see.

In other news:

• If you’re in Western Mass and want to learn two-pattern double-knitting, WEBS still has a few slots left in my Saturday afternoon class on April 12th
• If you’re in New England in general or want to travel here to take a bunch of classes with awesome designers (myself included), come to Interweave Knitting Lab, May 13-18, where I’ll be teaching all 6 of my workshops.
• And finally, I registered a new domain: metapixels.net. Bookmark it! Something interesting will eventually show up there.

You’ve probably already heard about my Parallax project. If not, go check out the recent post about it, as well as the eBook I just published.

While I was working on the concept for Parallax v3.0 (the three-color scarf in the eBook), I began playing with some other three-color ideas. This is the one I really wanted to knit from the beginning, but I knew I had to start (relatively) simple.

But as soon as the eBook was published, I chose colors and cast on for the one that I’d really been waiting for. This one, you see, really shows what I’ve been trying to prove with my multi-color Parallax concepts: In two colors, a checkerboard is still just a checkerboard. In three or more, new options are available. Sure, you’ve got an extra color to play with, but also new shapes. I’ll expound on this more later — but suffice to say, I can use the third color to emphasize different parts of the design that would not have been immediately visible with only two.

Take, for example, the scarf in the picture. There are two distinct alternating patterns. Would you find it surprising to learn that both of these patterns are based on the same warped-checkerboard grid? It’s hard to see — but it’s true. The same gridwork repeats throughout the entire scarf — only the way the three colors are used is changing.

As usual, Parallax v3.5 is done in Kauni — but this time, I’m using a more subtle trio. One color is a Kauni Solid; one is the very subtle Kauni Effektgarn EN; and the last is a slightly less subtle Kauni Effektgarn EF. I chose subtle colors for this one because I wanted the pattern to stand on its own merit, not necessarily as a celebration of unpredictable colorways like v3.0.

Finally, for those who want to know when this pattern is coming out, I have mixed news. It’s likely that I will not release the pattern for this anytime soon. It’s very complicated and I am under no illusions about the marketability of complex patterns. However, enough people have told me that my recent work “belongs in a gallery” that I am going to begin working on a new body of work that will be Parallax-based, very complex, and geared toward eventual display and sale as art pieces, not patterns. Depending how this venture goes, I may choose to release select individual patterns later, perhaps in a book dedicated to my Parallax explorations. But that won’t be for many years to come.