Double knitting is a form of

hand knitting Hand knitting is a form of knitting, in which the knitted fabric is produced by hand using needles. Types Flat knitting Flat knitting uses two straight needles to make generally two-dimensional (flat) pieces. Flat knitting is usually used to ...

in which two fabrics are knitted simultaneously on one pair of needles. The fabrics may be inseparable, as in ''interlock knitted fabrics'', or they can simply be two unconnected fabrics. In principle, an arbitrary number

n

fabric Textile is an umbrella term that includes various fiber-based materials, including fibers, yarns, filaments, threads, different fabric types, etc. At first, the word "textiles" only referred to woven fabrics. However, weaving is not ...

s can be knitted simultaneously on one pair of

knitting needle A knitting needle or knitting pin is a tool in hand-knitting to produce knitted fabrics. They generally have a long shaft and taper at their end, but they are not nearly as sharp as sewing needles. Their purpose is two-fold. The long shaft ' ...

s with

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yarns, as long as one is careful.

History

A famous example of double knitting is the pair of socks knitted simultaneously on one set of

s by Anna Makarovna, the nanny in

Leo Tolstoy Count Lev Nikolayevich TolstoyTolstoy pronounced his first name as , which corresponds to the romanization ''Lyov''. () (; russian: link=no, Лев Николаевич Толстой,In Tolstoy's day, his name was written as in pre-refor ...

's ''

War and Peace ''War and Peace'' (russian: Война и мир, translit=Voyna i mir; pre-reform Russian: ; ) is a literary work by the Russian author Leo Tolstoy that mixes fictional narrative with chapters on history and philosophy. It was first published ...

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When the pair was finished, she made a solemn ceremony of pulling one stocking out of the other in the presence of the children.

Double knit fabric

Double knit fabric is a fabric where both sides of the fabric are identical, for example, Interlock and

Rib In vertebrate anatomy, ribs ( la, costae) are the long curved bones which form the rib cage, part of the axial skeleton. In most tetrapods, ribs surround the chest, enabling the lungs to expand and thus facilitate breathing by expanding the ches ...

. These fabrics are knitted with two sets of needles on the circular knitting machine that form a material with the same face and back, unlike a single knitted fabric, for instance, a single jersey that has a different appearance on the front and back. Double knit fabric became popular within

1970s fashion Fashion in the 1970s was about individuality. In the early 1970s, ''Vogue'' proclaimed "There are no rules in the fashion game now" due to overproduction flooding the market with cheap synthetic clothing. Common items included mini skirts, ...

; in the 1988 Grammy Award–winning song " Parents Just Don't Understand",

Will Smith Willard Carroll Smith II (born September 25, 1968), also known by his stage name The Fresh Prince, is an American actor and rapper. He began his acting career starring as a fictionalized version of himself on the NBC sitcom '' The Fresh ...

comically excoriates his mother for forcing him to wear outdated, 1970s-era "double-knit reversible slacks". However, the double-knit fabric referred to is a machine-made, double-thick construction with some similarities to handmade double knitting (durability, reversibility) but none of the unique colorwork and construction possibilities. Scuba knit fabric is a lofty double knit fabric, that was designed to mimic neoprene, made from finely spun polyester fibers commonly with 2 way stretch that has a super smooth hand on both sides, low luster sheen and a full-bodied drape. Techno knit fabric is lighter weight and drapier than scuba knit fabric.

Methods

There are several methods for double knitting, including flat knitting on double-pointed

s; after one row has been worked with one yarn, the knitter slides the stitches to the other end of the needle and begins the same row with the next yarn. Only half the stitches are knitted with any one yarn; the rest are slipped. After both passes are done, the knitter then turns the work and begins another row. Another common method is to alternate a knit stitch of yarn A with a

purl A persistent uniform resource locator (PURL) is a uniform resource locator (URL) (i.e., location-based uniform resource identifier or URI) that is used to redirect to the location of the requested web resource. PURLs redirect HTTP clients using H ...

stitch of yarn B. Since the yarn is held to the back for a knit, and to the front for a purl, this results in two sheets of stockinette stitches, with the wrong (purl) sides facing each other. Switching colors ties the two sides together for a single, double-thick fabric. This method is often used for elaborate, two-color designs, as there are few constraints on how the colors may be used. The finished item from this method is reversible, each side holding the negative image of the other.

References

* Baber, M'Lou (2008). ''Double Knitting: Reversible Two-Color Designs''. Schoolhouse Press. . * Hiatt, June Hemmons (1988). ''The Principles of Knitting''. Simon and Schuster, pp. 233–247. . * Post-Quinn, Alasdair (2011). ''Extreme Double-Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork''. Cooperative Press. . * Royce, Beverly (1994). ''Notes on Double Knitting'' (expanded edition). Schoolhouse Press. . * Stamper, Kory (2006)
"Extreme Knitting: 2 socks in 1"
Knitty.com. {{knitting Knitting