Double Knitting With Slip Stitches
Slip stitches may be used for an easier method of double knitting that requires only one yarn be handled at one time. As a concrete example, consider a two-color pattern with a multiple of four stitches (labeled ABCD) being knit on double-pointed circular needles. On the first row, using color 1, stitch A is knitted, stitch B is purled, stitch C is slipped wyib and stitch D is slipped wyif. The knitter then slides the stitches back to the beginning (recall that the needles are double-pointed). Then, using color 2, stitch A is slipped wyib, stitch B is slipped wyif, stitch C is knitted and stitch D is purled. The knitter then turns the work and repeats indefinitely. The knitted and slipped wyib stitches come forward, whereas the purled and wyif stitches recede, resulting in a (very warm!) double-knit scarf alternating in the two colors with beautiful drape. The knit and purl stitches produce the front and back fabrics, respectively, of the double-knitted fabric while the slipped stitches allow for the alternation of color.
An even simpler slip-stitch pattern generates two fabrics at once on the same needle. Consider the pattern: * knit 1, slip 1 wyif *. At the end of the row, turn the work. Then knit the stitches that were slipped and slip (again wyif) the stitches that were knitted. In the end, one should obtain a "pocket" that can be opened (be sure to use wyif slip-stitches during binding off as well!) The wyif slip stitch prevents the yarn from crossing over to the back fabric, so that only the front fabric is knitted in any row. This is probably the secret technique of Anna Makarovna from Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace, who always knit two socks simultaneously
- When the pair was finished, she made a solemn ceremony of pulling one stocking out of the other in the presence of the children.
Read more about this topic: Slip-stitch Knitting
Famous quotes containing the words double, knitting and/or slip:
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—Anne Tucker (b. 1945)
“Nor the tame will, nor timid brain,
Nor heavy knitting of the brow
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No government appointed him.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“Woman was originally the inventor, the manufacturer, the provider. She has allowed one office after another gradually to slip from her hand, until she retains, with loose grasp, only the so-called housekeeping.... Having thus given up one by one the occupations which required knowledge of materials and processes, and skill in using them ... she rightly feels that what’s left is mere deadening drudgery.”
—Ellen Henrietta Swallow Richards (1842–1911)