Double the Fun!

Dottie’s Christmas Sweater

I had knit a sweater for my oldest, Abby, to give to her when she came home from Senegal, just before Thanksgiving. Let’s face it, going from Africa to Baltimore in November is a lot to ask of someone.  Immediately after that I cast one on for Dottie, because if I give one girl a hand knit sweater the other should really get one.

She had requested a cabled boyfriend sweater in a neutral color.  “ohhh! Taupe!”, she said.  I wasn’t sure I knew exactly what color taupe was.  Neither was the woman at my LYS, but with a little help from Google we decided Cascade 220 in River Rock would work nicely.  I found a great pattern (which is even called “boyfriend cardigan” from Lion Brand Yarns.  I found a Ravelry project (shared by the generous sewsweet) on this same pattern.  The early part went well.

The cable pattern blocked out to be lush and yummy.

The back of the sweater knit up quickly.  By a week before Christmas I had cast on both front pieces and gotten as far as the pockets.  That’s when I decided to try something a bit fancy.

I wanted to double knit the pockets.  The pockets involve a cable crossover.  I’ve done a lot of double knitting.  I’ve even done color double knitting (with various levels of success).  I’ve never done cables in double knitting.  I know it can be done, but I haven’t taken a class, and I didn’t feel like working it out from scratch or finding an online tutorial (though I knew they’re out there…).

Instead, I opted to try double needle double knitting.

I knit into the front of the stitch (as normal) on my first needle (which I chose to hold in back) and then, with a second ball of yarn) I knit (or purled, as appropriate) into the front of the stitch again with my second needle.  I duplicated every stitch in the pocket, but left my selvedge stitch single.

Notice that I chose very distinctly colored needles for the front and back.  As you can see in the next picture, they also have very distinctly colored cables.  This is a trick I learned from my sister Alice, and is very helpful when you’re working with multiple needle sets.  This is even more true on this project, where I’m working both the left and right panels on the same sets of needled at the same time.  It’s a lot of complexity and a lot of yarn.

I have my two halves set up with Needle A in back (no cables), and Needle B in front (pocket and cables).  Needle B has fewer stitches overall, but it also holds the extra selvedge stitch.  On the right side I knit needle A, left front first.  I slip the first stitch and purl all the other stitches across.  Then I knit Needle B left side.  Slip the selvedge stitch, work the pocket stitches, then, before the last stitch (the one which doesn’t have a partner on Needle A, I wrap the yarn with the yarn from Needle A as though I were working a color change in intarsia.

Notice how the last stitch on the green cable is attached to the red cable as well?

The front of the right side is worked in pretty much the same way.  Needle B first, knit across.  Needle A next.  Slip the selvedge stitch (which had crossed yarn from the row before), then work the stitches as the pattern dictates.

Then I turn the work and do the same thing on the back.  I wrap the last stitch when it is the joined side of the pocket, and leave it separate when it is the free end.  This works well, there’s been no trouble with almost knitting front and back together.  It does leave a rather obvious pocket, but the sample pictured in the pattern had a similar look.

In any case, I think the finished product turned out very well indeed.