Category: Double-Knitting

The paucity of good tie patterns in knitting has irked me for some time. Most ties are overly-complex, constructed in the same way you’d sew one, or overly simple, looking somewhat tacky, or done on the bias, which makes the damn thing too stretchy. No offense meant to anyone who’s designed and published a tie. I’m sure there are some good ones out there. I figured out a while ago that double-knitting could be well applied to ties — the fabric doesn’t curl, it has no wrong side, and you can literally do any charted pattern on one without worrying about the non-existent wrong side. Hence, these two.

They’re both done in Crystal Palace Panda Silk (Thanks to Crystal Palace for the free yarn!). They’re entitled “Silk City” and “Silk Road”, respectively from top to bottom. Silk City was a snap — once I’d worked out the tie measurements and knitted gauge, it’s just a matter of planning out which rows to decrease on and keep working the pattern. The pattern itself has a ridiculous 70-row repeat, but it’s really all the same stuff, just shifted over a bit each time. Silk Road was no picnic; it was the one piece I dreaded designing most, not being sure I could work further decreases into the already increase/decrease-heavy fabric. Needless to say, I figured it out, but the limitation is that the decreases can only be put in every 16 rows if you want them to be invisible. So I decreased every 32 rows, which made the tie just a bit longer than its brother. They both tie just fine, however, without any awkward tail bit showing. I’m planning to include my tie blank in the book too, and will be interested to see what other patterns people put on it.

Cat Bordhi recommended I write a pattern for some small item that will allow people to try a bunch of different double-knit techniques in a single small pattern. She suggested that a double-knit box might take advantage of the potential structural stability of the fabric, and I agreed I’d give it a shot. I looked up some other knitted boxes — most were felted — and found that what I had visualized when she mentioned that was not really what people were doing. So I decided to have some fun with it. My first prototype was no good — the increases from the top were too frequent and what was supposed to become a 4-sided flat-topped box became a 3-sided thing with 1/4 of the top folded inside as the decreases fought for supremacy with the proposed form. Here’s the second prototype, knit in my favorite old-world yarn, Bartlett. You can see it closed here.

There are still a number of issues with it. The combination of double and single increases at the top (it’s cast on with 4 stitches, then increased to 8, then increased again to 16, then 24 before the single increases start) makes intuitive charting difficult, and even I made a color change where there shouldn’t have been one in the beginning. When switching from the top to the bottom, it’s very confusing to figure where you need to start so you continue to knit on the outside rather than the inside — but now that there’s a finished form I will have an easier time charting it as I do the final piece. I tried a new bind-off, but I liked the original one better (not pictured). I did have some fun with the shaping — you can see those odd little purl rows on the outside edges of the top and bottom — I had to design a new chart element to describe how those are formed. They make a really clean, non-reversible fold in the fabric. There are similar ones hidden in the corners of the box body and lid as well. The fabric is a little too flexible — I will probably go down another needle size before trying it again. The bottom is a little poofy — I may need to do more radical decreasing to make sure it stays flat.

But the important part is: it’s a learning experience. I understand the form better now, and it’ll be easier to do the next one, and I can deviate from the stripes and do some other pattern as well.

It’s been a crazy past couple of months. I’ll try to recap. My wife Amanda and I put an offer on a condo, went to Belize for our belated honeymoon, came back, secured a loan, I went to Seattle for Cat Bordhi’s Visionary Retreat with a bunch of fantastic guys, ran up a huge phone bill closing the deal on the condo from Seattle between presentations, came back, closed on and moved into the new condo 3 days later. I taught 2 workshops, one to the Nashoba Valley Knitters’ Guild and one at Mind’s Eye Yarns, and I have been struggling to catch up with work, juggle my social life (which I really have to cut down on), and keep knitting toward the book.

I don’t know how I’m going to manage, but after the retreat I feel a little more confident.

I have told people in my workshops that they should visit my YouTube videos for refreshers on some of the workshop content. Now that the Winter 2009 Twist Collective magazine is down, it’ll be harder for people to find those links, so I’ll post them here:

Double-Knit Cast-On
Double-Knit Stitches
Double-Knit Decreases

I’ve been working on my signature hat pattern for some time — the first draft went out to the guys at the Men’s Spring Knitting Retreat last May. I had some test-knitters working on it last Fall, but with the wedding and all the other stuff surrounding that, I didn’t get to processing and finalizing the pattern until last weekend. I incorporated as many of my test-knitters’ ideas into the pattern as I possibly could — there was one other good one I may incorporate later but I will have to test it first. So, many thanks to the worldwide group of test knitters who helped me get this out, and now I hope people will try out the pattern for themselves.

One of the great strengths of this pattern is that I have developed a way of notating my technique that will allow anyone — even people who have never double-knit before — to succeed with this hat.

If you are a Ravelry member, check out the pattern page, otherwise

…and Thanks!

I’ve done a bunch of posts today and given them fake dates as if I posted them when I should have. Shhh! don’t let anyone know. I’m not a good blogger but I do eventually get around to posting what I mean to. So now I’m up to date and I’ve got so much news, but I can’t really let you all know until I get some confirmation back. Suffice it to say I am working on a bunch of new designs and trying to clean up my work and make it easier to document. This tasty little number is one of my current projects. It’s based on the work I was/am doing in the rivers on the Victorian Raffia Scarf, but subtly modified to make it more interesting and brain-twisting. To be honest, I wasn’t sure exactly how the spirals were going to interact when I started this, and they don’t do exactly what I planned, but they’re growing on me. I have two necktie designs in the wings. This is a sketch for one of them (the other side is here); the other is actually knit on the bias.

This one is knit from the tip — cast on with one stitch, then double-increased up as the spiral builds. The final design will be a little different — there will be a selvedge rather than the mottled edge you see on this one (I have worked out a beautiful DK selvedge that I will be using in all my future pieces that have edges), the side edges will be flatter (you can see I worked out a glitch in the design if you look at the first set of half-diamonds along the edges, and then the second one), and of course it won’t be knit in Lamb’s Pride Worsted on #6 needles. No, it will be in some fingering- or lace-weight wool-silk blend, probably, and the spirals will have more density to them. The narrow strip of the necktie will be one spiral wide, and the wide end will be two spirals wide. I’ll work out the gauge once I decide on the yarn.

Oh, and before someone comes in here and accuses me of ripping off this entry’s tagline, it comes from an album by psytrance group Saiko-Pod. While the album may not be one of my favorites in the genre, I cannot help but agree with the sentiment …

This morning, Twist Collective published its Winter 2009 issue, which I have a pattern in! My Four Winds hat — the one with the compass rose on it — is up for purchase by any aspiring or experienced double-knitters. Of course, the patterns can be used for non-double-knitting colorwork too.

Twist Collective approached me in mid-summer, after my friend Guido took my portfolio and some samples to TNNA, to write a pattern and an article for their Winter issue. I got the yarn and churned out two and a half hats in the space of a month, as well as a pattern, an article and three tutorial videos. Thanks to my sample knitter Suzanne for her help, and Suzanne, there will be a free pattern in this for you as soon as I figure out how to get my hands on it without having to pay myself.

I have a pattern ready for my Falling Blocks hat (go see my old antiblog around November of 07 for more info on that) and many test-knitters who have done a fantastic job with it. I need to finalize the pattern and get that one posted on Ravelry as well. To any of my test-knitters who are reading, thanks so much and I hope you can understand the delay. What with the Twist Collective pattern and the wedding, I just haven’t had time to review the input from that hat, but rest assured it is going to happen soon.

Thanks again to Guido for his advocacy, and to my lovely wife Amanda for putting up with my pattern-work while I should have been helping more with wedding stuff.

Many folks who follow the double-knitting group on Ravelry — or who attend knitting groups with me — will have seen me working on this scarf. I generally put a couple of rows in while commuting to work (not in traffic — I take the train!) and as such the scarf is taking its time. I’m sure it won’t be done this winter but it’s still fun to watch the Kauni change colors as I go. This is largely an exercise — the pattern is not my own, it’s modified from a pattern by a fellow named Kieran Foley — in decorative increasing and decreasing in double-knitting. Believe it or not, counting both knit and purl-side decreases, there are 12 different types of increase and decrease to keep track of — and in some rows, 10 of those are used in the space of 57 stitches.

But as I said, it’s just an exercise, to become proficient in all of these decorative elements so that my next design (a hat, I’m sure — surprise, surprise) will be able to incorporate some of these techniques.

I call it the Victorian Raffia Scarf because the flower element makes me think of Victorian patterns, whereas my knots and crosses modification of Kieran Foley’s pattern makes me think of African raffia cloth patterns. I’m probably off, culturally speaking, on both counts, but I like the name and I’m sticking with it. Check out another view.

And before you ask, yes, I plan on blocking it when it’s done. It definitely needs it.