What’s this Technique? (with pics)

Hello friendlies! I was hoping you could help me identify a technique used in a sweater I recently bought.

I found this gem at my local thrift store for a few dollars. It’s a Dale of Norway sweater. There is an interesting technique used in the cuffs, bottom band and shoulders that I am very curious about. They make those areas, especially the shoulders, feel much more durable and secure and I’m wondering if it would be possible to do a similar thing in future knits.

Google has been unhelpful though as I don’t know at all what to call this.

Underneath there appears to be some kind of ribbing? While the top continues in the pattern panels.

Sleeve cuffs.


Bottom band.



Shoulders.


Has anyone seen this before? What is it called? Would it be worth trying in a future knit project?

Thanks!!!

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Beautiful sweater. It looks like a very intricate and decorative way of catching floats.
Or are the sweater hem and the sleeve hems doubled?

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What a fantastic jacket! It’s beautiful.

I wonder if the cuffs etc are using type of double knitting to produce the colour work? Not all double knitting is fully reversible or to make a fabric reversible but can be used as a method to create colour work. Don’t ask me how as I don’t know enough, but perhaps it’s a route you could explore further?
The reason I thought of double knitting is the wrong side of the fabric is all knit stitches, no purl when I’d expect to see pirls on the back of stocking stitch. The last photo looks like there are some purl stitches and places where the strands have been caught up to keep neat but the earlier photos have all knit stitches.

Here is one link which may be of interest, I’m not saying its the best but possibly help in the research.

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What a great find! I don’t know this technique, but it looks very interesting. Maybe you could write to Dale of Norway and ask. Alternatively, you could try a Danish knitters’ group on Ravelry.

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Oh, just had a thought – could it be something like ladderback jacquard?

I can’t find a good link right now to a tutorial. It is a technique to loosely secure long floats.

I found a photo of some socks that use it – see what you think.

Imgur

Do the motifs where it happens have a long distance between colour changes?

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I’ve done two color Fair Isle and the floats on the back of it look much like those on the back of your piece.

In Fair Isle there are four stitch patterns when using two colors. With the four color hem there must be at least 8 ways to wrap or float the carried yarns.

Good luck in your search.

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Thanks, salmonmac! That’s a good question. I think, after looking at it again, it might be doubled.

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Thanks kushami! That does look very similar. I’ll look into that more. I hadn’t thought of facebook or just asking Dale of Norway, but those are great leads too. Thank you for the suggestions!

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Thanks Creations! I hadn’t explored double sided knitting, and will definitely check it out. The only double sided knitting I’ve seen is actually reversible, so it’s very interesting to know that it doesn’t always have to be. Thank you for the link!

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This is so interesting about Fair isle! I’ve done colour work on several projects, but have not studied fair isle specifically. Thank you so much for this suggestion!!

Im a machine knitter and at first I thought those were purl bumps on the wrong side. But I looked again & see that they were knit stitches which puts it back into the realm of knitting machine.

Just from the wrong side it appears to be a technique we call birdseye. But the surface doesn’t look like it. The surface on birdseye looks like pique. But it could be Norwegian jacquard, (a Superba specialty) which carries floats differently from Passap & most Japanese machines. (Toyota 901+ does it too). That surface is smooth & even on a knitting machine it would take an expert to get the tensioning just right so that the face of the fabric remains smooth like that. Let alone hand knit.

What Im getting at is that you may search for something like Norwegian floats. Or the like. Good luck.
I agree that double knitting is probably the way it was achieved. (Machine automatically makes double knitting. But we call another fabric “double knit”) Confused yet?

Hope this is a good clue. If not, Im sorry

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I have been thinking about this again today, and found a really good tutorial page on Ravelry for ladderback jacquard, if that’s what your knitwear turned out to be. I’m making my first stranded jumper (with short floats) but hope to progress to a pattern featuring reindeers or squirrels or somesuch (longer floats).

https://www.ravelry.com/groups/chubby-chic-knits/pages/Jacquard-Invisible-Floats

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