Double Knitting - Have You Tried It?

On Sunday I attended my first ever knitting class, I've been knitting for almost 50 years, I'm completely self-taught, and yes that's from the days before the internet, Craftsy and YouTube!!!  If a pattern asked for something I'd never heard of well I just sat and tried and unpicked and tried again until I made it work and I never cease to be amazed these days when I do check out videos and discover that that little girl did good, lol.

Recently I saw a Double Knitting class with Melissa Leapman listed on the Lion Brand Yarn Studio website and I thought it'd be fun to learn a 'new to me' technique, Double Knitting, so I signed up.  For those who don't know, especially us Brits for who think of Double Knitting as a weight of wool rather than a technique, this is a technique where you knit two sides of fabric on one set of needles at the same time.  You can leave the row ends 'unattached' to each other so you have two pieces of fabric joined only at the cast on edge or you can attach the row ends as you knit thus creating a double thickness piece that has no 'wrong' side - both sides appear to be stocking stitch.

You know I just love the Lion Brand Yarn Studio, I've blogged about it a couple of times before, here Where To Shop For Yarn In Manhattan and here Going To England For A Warm.

There's always a great display at the Studio entrance and here's this week's pics.

The class absolutely didn't disappoint, it was excellent.

Melissa Leapman was friendly, funny, clear, supportive and encouraging.  We worked each stage together as a class and Melissa explained all the steps brilliantly taking time with each student to ensure everyone understood the process before we moved on to the next bit.

We started out learning how to double knit by slipping the alternate stitches - a slower double knitting method where your work grows one row only once you've actually worked two rows - the front and back.  Then we learnt how to make sure our front and back sides were joined together at the edges rather than staying as two separate pieces of knitted fabric.  Next, we learnt a quicker double knitting method increasing the front and back rows at the same time so working one row makes both sides of your piece grow a row at the same time.

Having got the hang of that we moved on to reading a double knitting chart and adding a symmetrical image to the front and back sides of your piece in alternate colour ways and finally a piece with different images on both sides of your work creating this blue and white cat.

During class break, I treated myself to Melissa's book Mastering Color Knitting

and also to a new Yarnit - I've been wanting a second one for a while now and when my second ball of yarn rolled off the classroom table that was all the encouragement I needed to nip down to the
store and buy one!

By the end of class my head was ready to explode - reading the double knitting colour chart was the hardest bit!!! and I'm having to work out the best way for me to separate the two yarns I'm working with as I'm neither a continental knitter or an English thrower but use a throwing method where I don't ever leave go of my needles - a variation of a method sometimes called 'flicking' that I've perfected over the years and it allows me to knit pretty much as fast as continental.  Never mind that though the long and short of it is that I love, love, loved double knitting and want to try out more.

I grabbed the opportunity and snapped some pics of Melissa's double knitting work to share with you:

Winter Warmer Scarf - pattern in Mastering Color Knitting book 

Lysefjord pattern available here on Craftsy

Slalom & Stripes Hat pattern available here on Craftsy 

Snuggle-Up Baby Blankie pattern in Mastering Color Knitting book.

You can follow Melissa here on Facebook and she has a couple of new classes coming out on Craftsy over the next week too.

Here we are together posing for a selfie. 

While I was watching The Good Wife last night (don't you just love that show???!!!) I worked on this piece, I'm thinking I'll continue it till it's long enough to be a scarf.  My tension still needs some work, I think it's because I'm still working out how to knit the two threads using my 'flick' technique and I'm also thinking in future I might want to drop another needle size as double knitting is often looser than normal knitting so a smaller needle might make my work smoother.

I hope I get to do another class with Melissa soon, I'll be watching out for her name popping up again on Lion Brand's website and that's the best recommendation I can possibly give :D


Have you tried Double Knitting?  Which method do you use?  Have you ever done a class with Melissa or at the Lion Brand Yarn Studio?  Share your stories with us in the comments - Chris :D

For details of other fabric, yarn, trim and notion stores that I've visited around the world along with the NYC stores I love, exhibitions and events I've attended and wonderful people I've been lucky to meet click the links below or in my sidebar :D

Disclaimer: This post is for informational purposes only, no payment or commission is received on click-throughs and opinions are my own.

Clicking on an image will take you to a new page of crafty goodness :)
 

Going To England For A Warm

How's the weather where you are?  They tell me the weather here it's about to warm up but I'm sick of waiting and I'm off to England for a warm - and that's not something you hear people say often!

Thought I share a handful of photos I've taken from my living room window over the last few months.

It's been cold and grey and ice flowed down the Hudson.

Sometimes the sun shone but it was bitterly cold...

that's -15C/5F and RealFeel -30C/-22F, brrrrrrrrrrrr

...and the ice on the Hudson continued to grow.

This is how things looked down at street level.

Pretty cold yeah?

I did enjoy this pop of colour as I crossed Target car park one morning on my way back from the dog groomer.

It was a painful walk over there when my eyes watered from the cold wind it turned to icicles on my eyelashes - but look at these freshly groomed cuties, well worth it :D

And this made me giggle just last Friday morning - thoughtful of them to dig those seats out but I'll pass on sitting in them.

Last week I ventured out to Lion Brand Yarn Studio on 15th Street, Manhattan (read more about the store here).

Pics of their latest store window display, I love how they change this and it's always something eye-catching and wonderful.

And the purpose of my visit to the store?

To purchase the yarnit ready for my trip back to England.

I forgot to take pics of the yarnit in use before I left but trust me it's AMAZING, I've no idea how I ever managed without it, even in the home, let alone how fantastic it'll be on the plane.  Take a look at their website for how it works, apols for not showing it off better here, but it's so worthy of a blog post mention I'm doing it anyway.

I fly in a few hours and I'm so excited to see Mum, Flicky and Joe on this trip - we're celebrating English Mother's Day and Mum's 80th birthday while I'm there and we've lots and lots planned.  I've got a few posts scheduled while I'm away so I won't be disappearing altogether.

Here's hoping for much, much warmer weather by the time I return.  See you in a few weeks :D

Clicking on an image will take you to the new page of crafty goodness :)

Disclaimer: This post is for informational purposes only, no payment or commission is received on click-throughs and opinions are my own.

   

     

A Knitter's Dream Basket

So in the run up to Christmas my daughter, Flicky totally shocked me by announcing that not only was she knitting a scarf but that she'd joined a knitting group and taught some of the other girls at uni to knit too.  If you read my Lion Brand Yarn Studio post back in August you'll remember that she wasn't interested in knitting!

Well, I'm thrilled; some of my craftiness is finally rubbing off!!!

So for Christmas, I decided to surprise her with all the knitting and crochet goodies she could need to develop and continue her new hobby.   I figured she'd need a basket to keep everything tidy and to match her uni room so I made her her very own Knitter's Dream Basket using the Divided Basket pattern by Noodlehead.

The fabrics are Bluebird Park by Kate and Birdie for Moda

The basket was really easy and fast to put together and Anna's (Noodlehead) instructions are excellent and very clear.

I made a matching yarn bag so Flicky can knit on the plane without the ball running away down the aisle - it's just a regular pouch with a grommet on one side to feed the wool through.

 

Then I made her a matching tea cosy - can't think of anything better than knitting with a cuppa.

Tea Cosy and lots of new wool

So the Christmas pressie was a huge success and we've been back to the Lion Brand Yarn Studio twice since stocking up on extra wool and more needles.  

Current 'Zodiac' Window Display

Flicky's turned her hand to cabling and made a cabled headband and even Tatty's got involved eating her way through two sets of Flicky's bamboo needles (I did warn her that bamboo was a mistake as I'd had a similar Tatty experience with my own bamboo crochet hook which I wrote about here!).  

It's hard to knit with a Tatty dog on your knee!

I've been busy knitting myself - a really simple and quick Spice Berry shawl from Black Sheep & Ewe, had it finished in a day and I've received lots of compliments from CQ staffers and customers alike which is very welcome and makes you feel great.

Heading off to Vogue Knitting Live in Manhattan next weekend and guess who's coming with me???  Yep, Flicky - someone pinch me - maybe one day she'll even make a quilt!!!


Click the images below to read more about other Divided Baskets I've made.




Featured on:

Clicking on an image will take you to a new page of crafty goodness :)

Disclosure: 

This post contains Amazon and Craftsy affiliate links for which I am paid compensation on click-through purchases (at no additional cost to you). Otherwise, the post is for informational purposes only and all opinions are my own.

Copyright: 

Uncredited reproduction of all content, text and images on this site is prohibited. All content, text and images must be credited to Chris Dodsley @made by ChrissieD and include a link back to this site.

Follow