Demystifying Double Knitting

CHAPTER 1

BEFORE WE BEGIN

WHO IS THIS BOOK FOR?

‘Isn’t it the kind of yarn that’s about twice as thick as sock-weight yarn?’ Um… yes… well, kinda… but not only…

That’s the answer I get a lot, whenever I ask the question, ‘What is double-knitting?’ Most people are still only aware of the term relating to 8-ply yarn, and have never come across it in any other arena, much less that of an actual knitting technique. This book, then, is for everyone who has never heard of double-knitting.

Then there are those people who have heard of double-knitting, who almost unanimously tell me, ‘Oh, that’s far too complicated for me. I could never knit anything that difficult. I’ve only been knitting for forty-five years…’ This book, then, is for everyone who thinks that double-knitting is too scary for them.

Then there is another group of people. People who see a piece of double-knitting, and immediately, their eyes start to glisten with excitement. Their pulses start to race at the sight of something that looks both beautiful and complex, but they choose to see only the beauty, and the possibilities that lie ahead of them. They think to themselves, ‘I have no idea how that was made, but I want to do that!’ This book, then, is for everyone who has never been frightened of learning something new.

In fact, regardless of what category suits you best, this book is for you.

I’ve been teaching double-knitting for nearly ten years. I’ve taught the technique at local yarn shops, in private workshops, and at the most prestigious yarn expos and festivals all over the world. I have taught it to brand-new knitters, who have only recently learnt how to make a knit stitch and a purl stitch, and I have had the privilege of teaching experienced, veteran knitters, some of whom have been knitting for nearly twice as long as I’ve been alive.

I have taught it to colourwork novices, lefties, righties, throwers, pickers, flickers and Portuguese knitters alike. Whatever their level, whatever their methods, they have all entered my class with some degree of trepidation – the kind that often accompanies the experience of being faced with something unknown – and all of them have left the class with a foundational knowledge of a technique that will bring them untold numbers of hours of great joy and satisfaction. And before you leap to the conclusion that I must be a very arrogant man indeed to make the assertion of being such a brilliant teacher, let me tell you this: I did not successfully manage to teach all these different kinds of knitters how double-knitting works because I am some kind of educational legend. No, I was able to do it because of one very important fact: double-knitting simply isn’t that hard.

WHAT IS DOUBLE-KNITTING?

In its simplest form, double-knitting is a form of colourwork (that is, knitting using more than one colour) that creates a reversible, two-layered, two-sided fabric, that is usually (but not always) worked with two colours, and that usually (but not always) presents itself as stocking stitch on both sides. Most other forms of knitting create a fabric that has only one layer, and that layer usually has an attractive ‘right’ side, and a pretty gnarly-looking ‘wrong’ side. Double-knitting, by contrast, has no unsightly wrong side. Both sides of a piece of double-knitted fabric are equally attractive.

Both sides of a piece of double-knitting are equally attractive.

Double-knitting tends to feature graphical or pictorial designs: the nature of the smooth, stocking-stitch fabric, and the possibilities granted by having at least two different colours in play, make it ideal for patterns and designs that would be difficult to achieve with other forms of knitting.

Usually, the two sides of a piece of double-knitting feature mirror images of the same pattern, where one side is the negative image of the other. In other words, if one side shows a black cat sitting on a white background, with its head looking over its left shoulder, the other side will show a white cat sitting on a black background, with its head looking over its right shoulder.

Double-knitting is the greatest knitting technique in the world. That’s a pretty bold statement, isn’t it? It’s one that I wholeheartedly stand by, however, and one that I can easily back up with plenty of facts. Don’t get me wrong: there are many other wonderful techniques in the canon of ‘Knitting’ that are absolutely brilliant, which can be used to make unlimited numbers of beautiful items, and they all have their place. They all have their strengths, too: things that they do really well, gifts that they bring to the table that some other knitting techniques can’t achieve.

Lace knitting, for example, uses decoratively placed increases and decreases to create textures and patterns, sending columns of stitches skewing off in different directions, with gorgeous results. What about cables? Working certain stitches out of their usual order results in a structural three-dimensionality that lace alone could never dream of. Undulating sections of knitting cross over and under each other, in a writhing mass of beautiful designs, unique to the world of cabling. Fair Isle, and other forms of stranded knitting, bring colour to the party. Where lace and cables are really only ever monochrome techniques, relying on texture and form to create their magic, suddenly, through the practice of stranded knitting, you can open up a whole new vista of creativity, using colour as your paint, and your knitting as your canvas.

All of that is wonderful, of course, and I will never say anything to take those positive aspects away from these techniques. It must be said, though, that while they have their undeniable strengths, all of these kinds of knitting have their drawbacks too. Or, perhaps, to put it more diplomatically, these other techniques have definite limitations. As knitters or designers, we are used to those limitations: they are simply ‘features of the technique,’ and we don’t pay them much mind, but they are there, nonetheless. Cables and lace are single-colour techniques, and both very definitely have a good side and a bad side. The whole ‘right-side/wrong-side’ issue is a big factor in all forms of stranded colourwork, too. Stranded knitting has limitations on the kinds of patterns that can be achieved with it: because of the floats on the wrong side of the fabric, you can’t have too many stitches of the same colour in one stretch. Not, at least, without trapping or catching the float in some way, and even then, as much as knitters like to tell themselves that you can’t see the catching of a float on the right side, we all know you can!

When double-knitting enters the room, however, it looks at the limitations of all the other knitting techniques, and says, ‘Ha-hah! I see your problems, and I trample all over them! Your restrictions present no obstacles to me – I can do it all!’ That’s a rather ostentatious way of saying that whatever is possible in single-face knitting is also very doable in double-knitting and, what’s more, it can be achieved without the restrictions of the corresponding, single-faced techniques. Yes, you can cable in DK, and you can do it without needing a purl-stitch bed on either side of the cables in order for them to pop visibly. You can, of course, have a purl bed in DK as well, but you can also make the cables stand out by making them a different colour from the background stitches at either side. Yes, you can work lace patterns in double-knitting, and you’ll never have to worry about an ugly wrong side. With double-knitting, both sides of your lace shawl are as lovely as each other, and you can bring them to life with colour in a way that was never possible before. As for getting around the limitations inherent in stranded knitting, this is what DK does best of all. In DK, there are absolutely no rules governing the placement of the colours whatsoever, meaning that you can work large areas of the same colour without causing any problems with floats, precisely because there aren’t any floats in double-knitting. You can go wild, creating whatever design you like, without fear that it won’t work, because it will. I think you are getting the idea.

Double-knitting, for me, has lots of plus points of its own, as well. The fabric is twice as thick as a single-layered piece of knitting made with the same yarn would usually be, and that means double the warmth and double the squish. It’s also pretty much windproof, in a way that knitting usually isn’t. This is because there is a half-stitch offset in how the two layers of the fabric line up with each other, so wherever there is a space between the strands of yarn on one side of the fabric, that space is being plugged by a strand of yarn from the other side of the fabric, so even lighter yarn weights can be used to create very cosy items indeed.

Because, as I mentioned, there are no floats, DK fabric doesn’t have that stiff rigidity from which stranded colourwork often suffers. It has the same amount of lateral stretch as ordinary stocking-stitch knitting, making it great for shawls and other garments that benefit from a lot of drape.

Then there is what is possibly my favourite aspect of DK. Because it is double the thickness of ordinary knitting, you can work with much finer yarn than you otherwise might. And because DK is a graphic medium at heart, this means that the stitches – the pixels of your pattern – can be much smaller than they would normally be. This in turn means that your image/pattern/design will be rendered in much higher resolution, with more detail and clarity. Curves and circles no longer need to look so jagged and stepped, without having to sacrifice anything in terms of the thickness and comfort of the fabric.

Are you beginning to see why I say that double-knitting is the best knitting technique in the world? Oh, and if you still aren’t convinced – double-knitting comes off the needles completely flat and doesn’t need blocking. That’s right: even when it has stocking stitch on both sides. A single layer of stocking stitch will always curl back on itself, but with DK, you have two layers of stocking-stitch fabric with their backs facing each other. These two opposing forces, each trying to curl up one layer of the fabric, completely cancel each other out and the result is a perfectly flat piece of knitting, without even having to try. Heaven!

OK, WE GET IT – YOU LOVE IT: BUT WHAT ARE THE DRAWBACKS?

People often ask me about the drawbacks of double-knitting. I don’t believe there are any. Oh come on, they insist, there absolutely must be some things about double-knitting that could be easier, or that could turn out more neatly, or that could frustrate you less while you are doing them? Nope, I adamantly respond. But hang on, they counter, doesn’t having two layers of knitting, rather than one, mean twice as many stitches? Yes, it does. And doesn’t having twice as many stitches mean that it will take twice as long to knit? Yes, probably. But then I turn around and ask them why they knit. The answer is invariably because they enjoy it. It’s fun. Double-knitting, then, by its very definition, is double the fun!

Double the warmth, double the squish, double the comfort, double the beauty: all of these, yes, and for me, most definitely, double the fun.

WHAT CAN BE DONE WITH DOUBLE-KNITTING?

As I mentioned earlier, it is my genuine belief that there is absolutely nothing that can be done with ordinary, single-faced knitting that cannot be given the DK treatment and, in so doing, projects and patterns that were perfectly lovely before, are now sublimated by twin superheroes – colour and reversibility – and transformed into something better than they could ever have dreamed of being. But that’s all subjective conjecture, I admit. I am, after all, somewhat biased on this subject, so allow me to go into a bit more detail.

The vast majority of double-knitting already out there consists of the kind of fabric I was talking about before: stocking stitch on both sides (all of the purl bumps are hidden away in between the two layers of fabric, before you ask), displaying a two-colour, graphic or pictorial design. As you can imagine, without any limitations on colour placement, the possibilities for variation are endless, almost infinite, curtailed only by the limits of the imagination of the designer.

Here is the