Creative Knitting – Beyond Knit and Purl

My adventure into the world of Double/Reversible knitting began last year when I happened upon a website called the Knitters Book Shelf.  While perusing around the site, I spied a book called “Double Knitting, Reversible  Design, by M’Lou Baber.  I had to have it.  The rest is history.  The creative juices were indeed flowing.  She had convinced me that I could turn any picture into a double-knit design.  So, as Christmas was approaching I knew I had to make my granddaughter a ski hat to match the sweater I had already knitted her.  Using the leftovers from her sweater, I play around with the gauge a bit, trying different needles.  Once I had decided on that, I made my graph paper to match the gauge, then drew the pictures I wanted to go around the main portion of the hat.

You can’t see all the figures, but there is a Christmas tree, two reindeer, and a Mr. and Mrs. Snowman.

I learned a lot from this little experiment, and will cover some of the techniques in a future post.  I even came up with one of my own.

Here are my two grandsons sporting their new Christmas Head Bands.

To take this one step further, I decided the other day to incorporate the idea of a double knit design in a sock that I was making for a friend.  She loves dogs, so I was going to make sure that she had one.

This toe-up sock pattern is for right/ left foot.  I find that this approach to sock design addresses the issue of allowing more room for the big toe,(less holes) and accommodates people with unique foot shapes and deformities.

My friend was thrilled with her sock.

Life can’t get better than when you make someone happy.