Double Knitting

Alex wanted a hat. A Saints hat. He announced that around the time of playoffs, when the Saints were on the verge of going to Super Bowl. My time was limited. I did what any "frugal" mom knitter would ordinarily do - I went to Joann's, bought cheapo Vanna yarn and using the free chart on Ravelry, made him a hat. It took about a day and a half.

It was UGLY. Very ugly.

I didn't want Alex (who's 6' 2") to wear evidence of my ugly knitting on his head, for all to see, towering above everyone in its ugly knitting glory. I had to do better. The floats on the backside showed through, black through yellow, it was not good.

I started looking at double knitted hat patterns on Ravelry, and started wondering if I could do it that way. I had never done double knitting, but there were excellent youtube videos on it, and after doing some research, I figured I could do it. I got much better yarn (Sublime merino, ahem a little more expensive than Vanna) and started in.

It was kind of fun. It is two sided knitting, done at the same time. Both the front and back stitches are on the needle at the same time and as the pattern switches colors you reverse them. Hard to explain, but hecka cool. Here's what the beginning looked like:



It took me around 3 days. When it was done it was too big. Way too big. Big lesson there - gauge is really different when double knitting. But, being handy with a sewing machine fixed that up really quick.

Here's Grace modeling it. She was a much more willing model at the moment I had the camera.



I was on a double knitting roll at that point. I saw in the Stitches brochure a Market class on double knitting where they made these cute little heart coasters to learn the double knitting technique. I grabbed my pink and red left over Cotton Ease and whipped up a few to give to my knitting buds.



They were really cute!