Double Knitting Tutorial - Part II {Finally!}

And it's finally here, the moment where we take double-knitting to the next level. This session is all about switching up the colors. I just add a stripe, but once you see how it's done, you'll have the ability to add any sort of color work design to your double knitting project.

I'm going to use the colors I'm already knitting with to add a vertical stripe to my project.

--Refresher--
When we left off, we were knitting a panel with one blue side and one wheat side.
With each pass of the needles, we are actually adding a row to both sides. When the blue side is facing us, we're knitting the blue stitches and purling the wheat ones. And, as you'd expect, when the wheat side is facing us, we're knitting the wheat stitches and purling the blue stitches. Before knitting a stitch, we have to remember to move both yarns to the back of our work, and before purling we move both yarns to the front of the work. And lastly, you want to remember to wrap the yarns at the end of each row/before starting the next row {take a look at the first tutorial if you have any trouble with this}.

--Set-up Row--
As you can see in the following picture, we have just knit three blue stitches and purled two wheat stitches. If we were knitting a typical row, our next step would be to purl the next wheat stitch. I decided to make a vertical stripe that is two inches wide on both sides, so in total I will purl two of the wheat stitches with the blue yarn and knit two of the blue stitches with the wheat yarn. After these stitches, I go back to my original pattern.


As you can see, when I'm purling the stitch with the blue yarn, the wheat yarn is just hanging out in the front.

If you look at the first picture in this post {before I started the stripe}, you'll notice that the stitches on the needle are: blue.wheat.blue.wheat.etc. At this point you can see the two blue stitches next to each other::


I then knit the next stitch with the wheat yarn {again, if this were a typical row, I would be knitting all stitches with the blue yarn}


Once you've completed the row, you can see the change in the blue.wheat.blue.wheat pattern:


Since this is a simple vertical stripe, we can now follow the color pattern ~ using blue whenever we come upon a blue stitch and using wheat whenever we come upon a wheat stitch ~ ALTHOUGH, you now have to remember to stay in the knit.purl.knit.purl rhythm ~ knitting the stitches that are facing you and purling the stitches on the other side.

Once you've completed the second row, you can start to see the stripe::


The next picture is a bit blurry, but you can see what the strip looks like after a few more rows::


And finally, if you want to go back to stop the stripe, all you have to do is to go back to the original pattern. I've knit one row back in the original pattern, and you can tell by looking at the live stitches on the needle {they are now blue.wheat.blue.wheat.etc}::


You can do a lot more than this simple vertical stripe. If you want to do a simple horizontal stripe, all you have to do is go back to the "set-up" row in this tutorial, and from the start knit all of the blue stitches with wheat and purl all of the wheat stitches with the blue yarn. This is just the beginning of adding some color-work to your double knitting, and I'm sure once you practice it, you'll have no trouble increasing the complexity of your patterns!

I'm truly sorry that it took me so long to finally post the second phase of the tutorial. As always, if you have any questions, just send me an email! Good luck!