Reversible Fair Isle?

[MellieThePooh]

Howdy!

My wonderful DH is what I call an 'experimental knitter'. He never uses patterns and the things he makes are hit and miss as far as practicality and wearability, but he's in the habit of figuring out techniques like entrelac without any instructions, just by fiddling around until he gets it. It's wonderful because when I have a tricky pattern he can figure out the bits that stump me.

Anyhow, yesterday as we were driving along he suddenly came up with an idea for what he calls 'reversible fair isle' (somebody's going to point out that it's stranding, not fair isle, which is true). Last night he sat down and cast on with two different colors, then knit in such a way that he had a flat piece that was St St on both sides that was orange on one side and green on the other. Then he made a few patterns with orange on the green side and vice versa. It's basically a scarf made with stranding with no wrong side and knit flat.

My question is, has anybody heard of this technique before, and what is it called? I'm sure he's not the first one to come up with it (it would be really cool if he were). I'll try to load a picture here to help with the understanding, assuming the baby lets me. Thank you all!

[dustinac]

I wish my dh would be more like that! :teehee:

It sounds like double knitting to me, Amy has a video here showing it. (http://www.knittinghelp.com/videos/advanced-techniques)

[MellieThePooh]

It looks like that's it-DH will be very disappointed to learn he hasn't come up with anything New on the Earth yet ;)

[Marria]

Can we see a picture?

[Ingrid]

Elizabeth Zimmerman called this kind of thing an 'unvention.'

He didn't invent it, but he did figure it out on his own. :thumbsup:

[evona]

What a very smart husband you have. I am still befuddled just looking at DK (of course I was also scared to knit in the round until just a few months ago). He sounds like he has an engineer's mind :wink:

[MellieThePooh]

Certainly!

http://i656.photobucket.com/albums/uu281/melliethepooh/IMG_0544.jpg

His edges are a little rough, but he'll probably straighten that out soon.

And he is a civil engineer. Handy people to have around, and not just when you're trying to decipher a pattern!

[of troy]

yup --double knitting..

wait, make that 2 color Jacquard type double knitting (since there are lots of sorts of double knitting..

including 3 color (2 different patterns on each side of the work!) jacquard double knitting..

I've blogged about it..

its great for
reversible garments (i've made a vest, but scarves and hat and blankets are popular)

pot holders (double layers make them more insulating.. a single layer knit potholder isn't going to protect you from burns!)
place mats, and other household items (bath mats!)

there are other types of double knitting

2 color 'shaker (aka Brioche stitch) double knitting, or simple double knitting :
cast on even number of stitches, every row:
K1, bring yarn forward, as if to purl, k1, bring yarn back as if to knit. (repeat across row)

in the book Knitting new scarves.. there are scarves that are made by
X rows of ribbing (1 X 1 ribbing) that then changes into X rows of simple double knitting (to make stocking knit on both sides with a 'pocket' between the layers, back to ribbing..
Very interesting, very different, and fun!

[MellieThePooh]

Schnockers.

http://www.fallingblox.com/knitting.htm

Go down an entry or two-I showed my DH the 'triple knit' hat here, and after he picked his jaw off the floor, he's declared that he's not that cool at all after all, and that he'll figure out this triple-knit cable thing. This is so much fun.