Finished pillow

The finished pillow has come out measuring 10"x10".  I had originally planned on 20"x20" but thought I had cast on way too many stiches so I cut the number in half.  Turns out I was wrong.  Lesson learned, double knit comes out much smaller than expected.


Back



Front

 

I extended the front length out a few extra inches and worked in some button holes while tapering it a bit. And I bought two big red buttons to use to do it up at Jo-Ann's.

 

Another lesson was learned.  Craft pillows arn't really sold any smaller than 12"x12". 

 

New plan.  Have A stich me a small pillow case for inside and I will stuff myself.

 



Beautiful seams and more

The thing I love most about double knit is the beautiful side seams it is possible to create.

Even the base comes out with an elegant twist from the cast-on.

Oh dear

Made it about 20 rows into the pattern when I realized
1. I had definitely twisted stitches inside and
2. I was using two different sized needles. 
In my defense I knew there weren't a set, but I hadn't noticed that I had one size 9 and one size 10.  I wasn't going to change them since it's a pillow cover and the stitches looked all right but since I had to pull out the mistakes anyways I am now using two #9's.

I think if I get more twists I'm going to ignore them and just cut the loop from one side and tie it into a knot when I'm done.  It'll be hidden so it should be fine.

The pillow cover

After a couple of cast on's, the pillow cover had begun!
One lesson learned, double knit is much wider.  I thought I needed 80 stiches to make 20", so I cast on 80 of each color, or 160 total.  This was ridiculously too big.
Now I have 80 total, or 40 each of gray for the front and yellow for the back.

I also learned that I really and truely have to follow each step on the edges if I want them to come out uniform and seamed.  There's a great youtube video on making edges
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-BLtYkAfa8&noredirect=1
If that link doesn't work, it's called 'No slip, slip stich edging for double knitting'.

It's kind of slow, so at first I was all like, I bet I can cut some corners here.  But I found out I really can't.  If done, just as shown, it works beautifully though.

I joined in the third color for the letter A, blue, last night.  I did it part way through the row, just a couple of stiches from where I was going to start needing it.  I did this out of sheer laziness thinking it was that many less stiches to have to carry a third strand, but it wasn't the best idea because now I have a blue tail in the middle of the piece that I'll have to deal with later.  I think it would be best to join in on the edge, but then again I would still have a blue tail either way, so maybe it will turn out brilliant.

The pattern was also adjusted so that the letter A starts on an odd row.  This is the 'front' as you follow a double knit chart and so it made so much more sense to just cross a row out and start one sooner than I had charted the A.

I'm a fool for Double Knit

I'm new to Double Knitting, and so far I find it fascinating so I wanted to see what else I could do with this.

This chart above is the beginning of a set of Monogram Pillow covers I'm going to make to cover some old couch pillows in the house.

I'm going to double knit the case so I won't have to stich up the side seams!  I'm so excited by that 'cos it's not my favorite part of knitting.  Also I'm going to use 3 colors.  One for the back, one for the front and a third for the Letter A.

After some practice I have created some mini pouches and I think I'm ready to go.

Two-in-one socks are really hard

 

 

 

Everyone knows that the problem with making socks is that you have to make two.
So I thought I'd try this technique which allows you to make two at a time.  One inside the other.  Which is totally cool and impressive to others, but maybe not really worth the effort of keeping the stitches for each sock straight.  And casting on, what a b*(&.

By the time I victoriously pulled them apart they had so many fixes and missed stitches that they really weren't the pride and joy I had hoped for, and I would never try doing anything more complicated than a variegated yarn.

So overall, pretty cool, glad I did it, but I think I'll stick to making socks one at a time in the future.

Getting started

The world of Jananaknits is now open.