My Free KP Yarn Arrived! (and a TYC Update...)

And here it is :-) As I mentioned in my last post, I won this from Knit Picks to make the Knitty pattern Amused. They had a yarn giveaway contest and awarded three people Swish Worsted for Amused, one person Merino Style for Surface, and one person WOTA Kettle Dyed for Everybody Knows. Basically, I had to add a comment to the giveaway announcement post explaining: 1) which pattern of the three I liked best and why; 2) my Ravelry ID; and 3) my blog URL. What luck, huh?! The next contest takes some actual work... see here. Anyway, I'm bumping Tubey down one on my queue so that I can knit Amused after I finish Tangled Yoke Cardigan.

After delving into all possible techniques to be found on the internet for 2x2 rib tubular CO (See Ysolda Teague's page for two different methods. I knit my CHP ribbing using her YouTube video.), I've taken a slight tangent and have been looking into double knitting techniques. Let's see... There's an open or closed cast on. One color or two (Somewhere I saw more than two colors used, but we won't go there!). The two sides of the knitting are usually separated, but you can interlock stitches by switching the front and back yarn. I'll speak more on that in a bit. If you're interested in learning how to double knit, the places I found that helped me: YouTube (You can several cast on methods for double knitting, although not how to interlock sts.); Ravelry (There's a Double Knitting group with a forum, which is where I learned quite a lot.); and Googling it (FYI: not that many people have tutorials on double knitting. But, there's a Yahoo group for it, although I haven't checked it out yet.). Stitch Diva Studios has a nice set of basic instructions with pictures. Start here for that. My favorite thing about their tutorial is they cover all four ways you would have to hold your two yarn strands -- knitting/purling a st in the front and knitting/purling a st on the back.

I CO for a needle case pattern I found on the Knit Picks Options group on Ravelry. This pattern is the reason for my interest in double knitting. The entire piece is knitted, needle slots and pockets, without any seaming. Pockets and slots are created by interlocking stitches and binding off on the front for openings. It sounds cool, but let me tell you, MY HEAD HURTS! I'm sure I've made a bunch of tiny mistakes so far on how to twist the yarn at the pocket edges so that it's hidden. But, I don't care at this point since I've given myself a headache. Here are some pics of my progress, both front (inside) and back (outside). The little blocks of color represent the separated slots for interchangeable needle tips. The green pocket in the middle is for cables.

And finally...a TYC update: I've attached the sleeves and have maybe two inches to go before making the tangled cable pattern on the yoke. I hear that I'll have hundreds of sts on my needles for those 18 rnds. Yikes, I already have well over 200 sts now! Sorry, no progress pic:-( I thought I had one! Oh, can I just say how awesome those KP Options cable caps are?! When I finished the body, I put end caps on and used my needle tips for another cable to make the sleeves. What a time saver. The only thing I don't like about the TYC pattern, and this is something I don't like on all seamless bottom-up patterns, is the sleeve attachment. When attaching and for several rounds after, the stitches near the end of the sleeves get severely stretched. I try to use DPNs (or extra circulars) to temporarily relieve the stress on the sleeve and adjacent body sts. When knitting top-down, this stretching problem does not occur. Yeah, I'm partial to top-down patterns ;-)