Creative Knitting – Beyond Knit and Purl

While dinking around with a DK(double knitting) swatch, I finally worked out a “no twist” yarn edge closure that even I can do.  Now, I will say right off that it is not a new discovery, for I am sure someone has done it.  However, after reading and watching some of the offerings on this subject, I was a bit confused.  So… I decided, that either my ears were plugged, or my brain wasn’t functioning on full tilt when I investigated the subject.

Now, that said, here is what I have to offer.

After you have your set up row in place. tie the CC(contrast color) on loosely.

Row 1. ONLY– Slip the first stitch of the DK pair knitwise.  Bring both yarns to the front. Placing the MC (main color)yarn from the first knit stitch over the yarn(contrast color) of the purl.  Lift the CC yarn, while holding the MC yarn firmly to the left.  Purl the second Stitch of the DK pair with the CC.  Bring both yarns to back.  Continue across the row, working DK pairs till you have one DK pair left.  Knit the first stitch of the pair with MC.

Drop the yarn behind your work (the green one).

Pick up purl yarn (CC)and bring it to the left, under the tip of the needle and to the front.

Purl the last st.  Turn.

You can now see the captured yarn underneath the white bar.

Row 2–  With yarn in back, slip the first stitch knitwise.  Bring yarn to front and lay it over the needle to the right. Stick tip of right needle into purl st to left. See below.

Pick up yarn CC (contrast color)and purl the stitch.  Move yarn(green) to back.  Move MC(main color) to back.  Now you are set up to work across DK pairs.  Work all pairs to last pair.  Knit first stitch of last pair, drop yarn in back as before.  Pick up CC yarn, bring to left, underneath the needle, and forward.  Purl the last stitch.  Turn.

Row 3– Slip the first stitch knitwise, as before.  Repeat the beginning and ending procedure as for Row 2  throughout your project.  It works for me.  Maybe it will work for you.

 This make a nice slip stitch chain up the side, and secures the CC without any twisting or turning tricks.

OK, here’s the MORE part!

For the last few days I have been trying to figure out how to make a solid color band around a double knitted picture.  However that required that I have the same color yarn on both sides of the bottom, top and side edges of my project.  The bottom and top portions were no problem, as it only takes a separate strand of MC to be worked with the MC working yarn to produce the double sided solid frame of the same color.  The problem was how to connect the picture portion using two different colors to the frame edge stitches.  This method is also helpful if you don’t want all those different colors running down the trench between the two sides, causing extra unwanted bulk.

The problem was solved when I began to think, INTARSIA!   I realized that I could combine any amount of colors if I began to handle them as an Intarsia pattern.  The only difference is that I will be working both sides of the picture at the same time.  So… here’s the fix!

Here’s another of the “more” tips-

Double Knit Tension Problems

Most of the tension problems with DK seem to center around the “purl” stitch being to loose on the backside.  Practice definitely helps, but I’ve discovered that sometimes it take a bit of playing around with how your hold your yarn to tension it.  For me, (since I purl with my left hand and knit with my right hand) that means double wrapping the yarn around the little finger on my left hand.  This seems to keep my purl sitiches much firmer, and evens out my overall tension.  You might give this a try if you find you are having the same problem.