Friday, January 19, 2007

Double Knitting Tutorial!

ETA: I wanted to give a big thank you to everyone that has used this tutorial, shared it with others, and given. I'm so happy that you've found it helpful, and I would thank you each personally if I could. If you have completed a double knitting project after seeing this tutorial - share a link to it in the comments, I would love to see your work! 

I have received some anonymous questions in the comments that I can't respond to individually, so I thought I would put the answers here (they might be helpful to others?). 

1. If you're going to use a pattern that calls for double knitting, you shouldn't have to change any of the numbers in that pattern (for example the number of cast-on stitches), they should have already (hopefully) taken that into account when writing the pattern. 

2. There was some confusion when I said purl or knit "every other stitch" below. You won't skip any stitches, just switch back and forth between the stitches. In other words: when you are working a row, you will end up working every stitch, you will purl one, knit one, purl one, etc. Hopefully that helps! 

Finally ~ I've created a new blog, Seasoned, with my sister, and if you like any of the work I've done on Winter Foliage, I think you'll like the new space. Please come over and check it out! 

I've been encouraging a lot of people to try double knitting. There might be some other good resources on the web, but I like the process of double knitting so much that I decided to put together a tutorial. I took pictures (A LOT OF PICTURES) for each of the main steps, and I'm going to write up a small description of the process. If you have any questions or need clarification, let me know.

This is going to be a two part tutorial. The first part covers basic double knitting. The second part will incorporate a design by switching the colors to create a design. I'll post part 2 early next week.

I'm writing this with the assumption that you're making a scarf or other flat item,

--Decide upon the number of stitches for your scarf. You're going to cast on twice the number of stitches plus 1. For example, if you want a scarf that's 15 stitches wide, cast on 31 stitches. (I'm using only 19 stitches for this example).

For this example, I'm using one light and one dark color. I choose to cast on with the dark color and use an odd number of stitches so that i start and end each row with the dark color, as you'll see, this produces a dark end on all sides of the item.

--First Row--

Knit the first stitch, and every other stitch using the dark color.

Add the lighter color by just tying it between the first and second stitches. You'll weave in the end of this yarn when you're finished.

Bring both the dark and light yarn to the front of the work. You will now purl the next stitch and every other stitch with the light yarn.

**Important - whenever purling a stitch, make sure that both yarns are brought to the front (as in the above picture). Whenever knitting a stitch, make sure that both yarns are brought to the back of the piece(as in the next picture).



Continue knitting and purling everyother stitch until the end of the row. When you look at your needle, every other stitch should be the lighter color and the row should begin and end with a dark stitch:

--Second Row--

At the end of each row, the yarns have to be wrapped (this keeps the two sides of the piece together). I do this by taking the dark yarn and bringing it under the light yarn before starting the next row.

For the second row, you will purl all of the dark stitches and knit all of the light stitches. **And remember that when purling, you should move both yarns to the front of the piece and when knitting you should move each of the yarns to the back of the piece.




After a couple of rows, you should begin to see the development of the two sides:

End of part one! Enjoy and let me know if you have any questions.

14 comments:

Nicole said...

This is such a great Tute! The quality of your photos is perfect! I am so excited to try.

I'm also excited to see the "learning" ball of yarn that I used while sitting on your couch. Such lovely memories.

After I get home (and the Big Fat Hypocrite Blanket is done) I'm going to try this double knitting technique.

Unknown said...

HEY! This is excellent. I thought I would check out your blog to see if you had posted anything on socks (I totally forgot everything from our in-person sock tutorial!) but this looks like fun. I am going to try it!

Such great yarn here in Argentina!

Anonymous said...

Hiya!, This is a great tutorial but where is part 2?
I need part 2 cos im knitting a quilt and im stuck, could u make part 2 for moss stitch cos i think i know what im doing but im not sure.

Thanks!

Anonymous said...

great tutorial! I had looked at a bunch of others and was so confused, but this cleared it all up-- thanks!

Tanya Seaman said...

Great tutorial -- so easy to understand!

Anonymous said...

Wow! I love this tutorial! The directions are so clear and direct! I feel so smart right now actually doing double knitting for the first time. Thank you :D

Anonymous said...

Hi, Your tutorial on double knitting is the best out there! Seriously, very clear with the great pictures. Thanks so much for posting it,Jan

www.gisley.blogspot.com said...

Thank you soooo much! I've been browsing for a tutorial on double knitting for days. I'm excited to start the scarf now. I finally got the idea with your clear instructions!
Greetings from Brazil!
Loved you site and all your tips.
Betsy

RxGirl said...

Thank you so much for posting this! I had tried double knitting before but it never really worked out right. Your pictures are so clear and helpful.

Unknown said...

Hope you don't mind my asking a question...
I found a chart that uses this. Would I still double the stitches? Would that affect the pattern?
Hope that makes sense.

Great tutorial!

gillianbc said...

I found this on Pinterest. I'm going to use it to strengthen the underside and ball of foot of socks as these are the bits that always wear thin. Tried transitioning from single to double knitting on a swatch and it looks fine. My feet give you a big thanks!

Anonymous said...

I'm apparently the only one that is confused... what do you do with the stitches you skip when you're knitting/purling every other stitch? Do you just move them to the other needle, or do you do the opposite stitch on those.

For instance, your first row of white, do you purl every other blue stitch and just move the other ones over? Your pictures don't show that, or any stitches being worked actually.

Anonymous said...

Awesome tutorial- I've been scouring through about a thousand different tutorials on double knitting and they've been anything from slightly helpful to completely baffling. This really cleared everything up, thanks!

Anonymous said...

Thank you for your tutorial. I have looked at many and this was the easiest and simplest to understand.