I am an accomplished knitter, but only recently learned double knitting because I want to make a scarf which is red on the back side and black on the front side with a word in red letters up the black side. I have laid out the letters on graph paper to reasonably emulate the particular font. I could apply the quite long word by using duplicate stitch with the red yarn. However, is there a way to bring the red yarn forward to the black side and take the black yarn back to the red side just by knitting? I cannot figure a way to do this after many, many tries. Perhaps it just cannot be done, though I am sure there are double knitting patterns which create a reverse image on the back of the fabric. Anybody know?
I can carry the two colors one to each hand. However, if I cannot reverse the colors to the other side, there is no point in doing that as I can make the plain fabric by working one stitch (K or P as the case may be) and slipping the next one purlwise.
when double knitting, the knitting is complimentary (so [B]A[/B] becomes [B][COLOR=Red]A[COLOR=Black]) [/COLOR][/COLOR][/B][COLOR=Red][COLOR=Black]which works fine for A (since is is a reversible letter
but with double knitting an R becomes a backwards R on the other side…
and even if you knit words
L
I
K
E
T
H
I
S
not all letters work in reverse!
you might be better off working in round… in intarsia or fair isle.
(meanwhile this page on my blog has links to my 8 part series of double knit info) --with a link to a YouTube video with 1 style of cast on (there are many cast ons suitable for double knitting) and some stitch patterns and some ideas for patterns.)
[/COLOR][/COLOR]
You could fair isle into your double knitting, the result being red on both sides with black carried in the center. PM me if you want to try and I’ll explain it.
I am trying the same thing on a much smaller scale using two tones of green. I am working on a geekish gift for my boyfriend. What I did was to take the words I want and graph them out the same on two different sheets of graph paper and stick the backs together. I then used another color on my graph to show where the letters on each side would overlap and which side color I was on… Double knitting is, as I’m sure you know already, two fabrics knit together at the same time. The way I am doing it, there will be sections where I will be using the same strand of color for the front and the back (hence, I don’t assume it’ll be double knit anymore). So I am experimenting and hoping for the best. I would love to see what you come up with and how it turns out.
for a geeky (computer geeky) person–Knitty.com has a binary scarf…(you could have it spell out what ever you want… in binary!)
and there is the home of mathematical knitting
which has a link to the essay, Knit an Purl meet my friends Hex and Bin --and its has a down loadable script for changing a letter (A say) into Ascii code (65(hex) and then changing the hex into binary (1’s and O’s) and then you can :
1–knit the 1 and 0’s into words (via the Knitty scarf)
or
2–knit the 1 and 0’s as knits and purls and make a textured design that is really binary code (include a translation if desired)
or
3 use this info in some other way! (fair isle? )
very geeky, very simple, very versital, (and it will work better than the common alphabet if you double knit!)