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Four-needle double knitting: what is it?
The four-needle method is an easier way of working double knitting, with improved tension and a much better method of displaying the design as you go--easier to see, easier to work.
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| Four needle double knitting: four needles in hand, with two operational at any one time. |
Four needle double knitting is the next logical development in this double knitting series, and a method I have been developing for many years.
Classic double knitting
The series began with classic double knitting. This is double knitting worked using two knitting tips: either the two ends of a circular needle, or the two tips of two separate straight knitting needles. Each color comes from its own ball of yarn, and the color stitches are arranged alternately, so that one set of stitches--purled from the knitters POV--makes the back fabric, while the other set of stitches--knitted from the knitter's POV--makes the front fabric. This is called alternating stitch double knitting, or simply classic double knitting. It comes in one-pass and two-pass versions. On the needles, it looks like the photo below.
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| Classic double knitting on the needles: a black and white design being worked on alternating stitches. The white stitches are being knit, the black, purled. |
Classic double knitting combined with separated (independent) rows
Classic double knitting requires alternating stitches. However, stitch order is not destiny. Stitch order can be changed. Part two of this series describes how a piece can start with double knitting a border in classic style on alternate stitches: the cats on the potholder below. Then, the stitches of each color can be rearranged so all stitches of one color are slipped on one set of needles, while all of the other color are slipped on another. This sets up separate red and white layers shown below, between the dotted lines. For this middle part of the potholder, each fabric is knit independently from its own ball of yarn: red from the red ball, white from the white. This is flat knitting (back and forth) but it is also possible to work this trick for round and round in circular knitting, like for a hat or socks. When the plain layers are finished being knit, the different color stitches will again be slipped onto a single needle, one red followed by one white, and so on, until all the stitches lay alternately, ready to double knit more cats in classic style for the top border.
Knitting the middle parts as separated layers improves the tension, because there is no intervening stitch over which, the running yarn has to pass in its trip between adjoining stitches. Separated layers also allows texture work (here, words), just as if this were ordinary single layer knitting (which it IS, for the length of the separation).
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Blue ◾ back layer. Green ◾ front layer. Red ◾ ↕ "classic" double knitting, cats worked via alternate red and white stitches on 1 circular needle. Brown ◾ ↕ one color backgrounds, worked as separate layers, each layer knit back & forth on a separate set of needles (with writing added). Black ◾ ↕ top border to be knit same (classic style) as bottom border: red & white stitches returned to one needle, alternately. |
If you think about how the needles are in the work, under the lower dotted line where the cats are classic-knit on alternate stitches, the work is on two needle tips (one tip at each end of a circular needle). Between the dotted lines, the knitting is worked on four needles--two to knit the red layer, two for the white layer. Above the upper dotted line, the stitches are to be re-joined (red-white-red-white...) for the top border, so the work will be back on two needles again. Together on two, separated on four, back together again on two.
Four needle double knitting
Four needle double knitting takes the next logical step, and actually knits not just the background, but the actual color designs as individual layers. As with the middle fabrics of the red and white potholder above, today's trick also uses four needles--one set for each layer, but these four needles are worked in sets of two, alternately across the row, rather than in sets independent of one another.
Working the needle sets alternately intertwines the layers across the row, meaning that by choosing which set of needles to operate, each color is delivered to the correct layer as required by the pattern. In this way, the layers of fabric are intertwined, but the individual stitches are not. A double-thick, reversible double knit fabric with color patterns is created by four needle tips, rather than two. (Confused yet? It' ll all come clear in the end, I promise!)
In the below photo, a teal and maroon scarf is being knit with four needle technique. The back layer is on needles 1 and 2, while the front layer is on needles 3 and 4. As with classic double knitting, the fabrics are knit back-to-back, purl sides inside, facing one another. The opposite of a purl is a knit, so both outside fabric faces show as smooth stockinette, with its pretty little V-shaped stitches. As shown, where the colors switch, they create a mirror image: each maroon speckle is backed with a teal, each teal with a maroon.
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| Four needle double knitting, close up. The back layer of purled stitches (blue arrow) is worked on needles 1 & 2, the front layer of knit stitches (orange arrow) is worked on needles 3 &4. This results in a double faced fabric, with the layers worked back-to-back (black arrow) along each row, worked on two sets of needles. |
This is the finished scarf (adapted from Anne Bosch's double knit sampler scarf) and it is the star in the following how-to-videos.
Four needle double knitting, how-to
There are three types of double knitting on this scarf. This photo shows the scarf end from above.The black frame below shows three windows into the work. Each window shows a distinct type of four needle double knitting
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| Windows 1 (top) 2 and 3 |
-- ③ The bottom window shows Color Blocks, where the teal and maroon switch fabric faces relatively infrequently--every 6 stitches.
Although the entire scarf was knit using four needles, independent layers, blocks, and speckles require using the needles in different ways.
- Again, we have already looked at independent layers in the previous post.
- Blocks--a new trick--are knit by a trick called "slide-by."
- Speckles--another new trick--require a different trick called "picking."
Below are videos of slide-by and picking.
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First, slide-by, which is a new trick for working color blocks in four needle double knitting.
(Skip any ads ASAP--You-Tube monetizes these videos, not me.)
This link opens a separate window with time-indexed written transcript of this video, translatable via the "translate" app, upper right corner of sidebar.
--Setting up the work. When you get to the end of each block, you can either keep hold of the same color yarn and switch needles (which I am doing in the video) OR you can keep hold of the same needle and switch the yarns. Keeping hold of the needle means less needle-sliding, but more yarn changing, while keeping hold of the yarn means more needle sliding, but less yarn dropping and picking up again. This may not make a lot of sense just talking about it, but when you go to try, you will see that at the point where the yarns switch from one fabric face to another, you do have a choice about which way to proceed.
--Sliding needles. It is also wise to develop habits about which needles you slide in and out in which order--helps prevent skipping a batch of stitches by accident. Needle sliding must also keep the path of the yarn as short as possible, as each yarn travels between fabric faces along the inside of the fabric. The shortest path results by keeping the right (working) needles INSIDE the two holding needles. This is shown in the video, and also clearly shown on this photo of a light and dark green striped potholder which I have borrowed from the very next post.
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Next, picking, another new trick in four needle double knitting. Picking is used for knitting speckles, meaning, changing color very frequently.
This link opens a separate window with time-indexed written transcript of this video, translatable via the "translate" app, upper right corner of sidebar.--Tension. On your first try at picking, the tension is likely to be terrible. But, that does not matter for the final product, because, as per the video, the tension can be afterwards adjusted by manually working the excess slack from needle to needle, down the row. It is best to do this every few inches along the row, when both sets of stitches--front and back--are still slung around the barrel of the needle, and not yet on the cable. In this way, each stitch will be of the same diameter, determined by its path around the needle. If the stitches have already fallen off the barrel, so they are sitting on the cable when you go to adjust, the result will be over-tightening. The tension will certainly improve as you go up the learning curve. Soon, little or no manual tension adjustment will be required.
--Yarn control. The running yarns will twist together if you pick each yarn up the same way, meaning each yarn over the next, or each yarn under the next. Unwind the running yarns by letting the project dangle periodically. Alternatively, avoid twisting by working a certain color first over, and the next time, under; then over, then under, so each stitch undoes whatever twisting was created in the previous.
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Three more things.
First, I knit continental style (yarn carried on left hand). But, the technique has been successfully tested by English-style knitters. If that is your preferred style, here is a little video of four needle double knitting in action, English-style.
Next, you sometimes have to combine methods--there's no hard cut-off between when you have to start actually sliding needles around and when you can still reach stitches by picking. The upper limit for picking is 3 stitches or maybe 4: you'll soon find out.
Third thing is, the needles make the difference.
--Needle size must allow forming somewhat loose stitches, but not so loose as to be sloppy. This is might not be the same size needle you would ordinarily use for any given yarn: experiment.
--Equally important is grip. In the scarf videos, I am using Aero brand needles which have a toothy grip, coated with an almost gritty substance. Shiny needles like ChiaoGoo stainless, I find excellent for slide-by, but with picking, they're so slippery that I lose stitches off the ends. Wooden needles (used in the English-style video) give very fine control for picking because they are grippy. However, wooden needles can be so grippy that they're a drawback for slide-by, especially when brand new.
--The smoothness of the cable join is also very important, especially if mainly working color blocks. On vacation, I tried slide-by with discount-store needles and the poor quality cable join caught the fabric.
--Tip sharpness is also a factor. With round tipped needles (Prym metal circular) I couldn't get on at all.
Finding the right needles is >> make-or-break. << If you try this and don't get along, try again with different needles. At knit-night ask your friends to bring different needles, and experiment with different brands. Also to consider: how slippery the yarn is. The interaction of needles + yarn makes a difference, so run your needle experiments using the planned project yarn.
Four-needle double knitting: WHY?
This post started with the "what," followed by the "how." Now the question is "why."
Short answer: although it takes a while to go up the learning curve, four needle double knitting ends up faster, and makes a better fabric. It also lets you knit cables and other textures right into the double knitting--covered in the next post of this series.
The long answer is that, although this took me years to figure out, I kept going because classic (alternating stitch) double knitting just never came out well for me. I always had tension problems. My first attempts were truly awful. It did get better with practice, but it never got easy: tension always took a lot of attention. An even bigger problem was band-width. I wished for stitches to be better displayed, so assigning stitches wouldn't take so much concentration. For me, classic double knitting was never TV knitting. Even an audio book was chancy.
The idea was great. But the knitting itself? Not so much.
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| My first attempts at classic (alternating stitch) double knitting. Discouraging! Over time, my tension did improve, but never became automatic, always requiring close attention. |
So, I kept plugging away until I figured out this trick. And over time I found that the four-needle method really did help with tension and display. Except for demo purposes, I have completely switched away from classic (alternating stitch) double knitting. I now use the four needle method as my default.
As to tension, with four needle double knitting, the stitches on each needle are created as they will lay in the fabric side-by-side. There is no intervening stitch of the alternate color to throw off the tension. And, you can tell as you go whether the tension is good or bad. As demonstrated in the videos, by holding the front and back needles together and comparing, you can tell whether overall tension needs adjustment. By contrast, where the stitches alternate (classic double knitting) that intervening stitch prevents direct perception of tension issues. In classic double knitting, you (or at least I) only discover poor tension after the stitches have come off the needles and are laying in the fabric.
As to display, with this trick, there's no confusion about which stitch belongs on which fabric face. No more chanting "front, back, front, back" as you run your finger down the alternating stitches.
To my mind, this is like (way!) back in the day, when personal computers first revolutionized word processing. Mark-up language was abandoned in favor of WYSIWYG ("wis-ee-wig") displays, where What You See Is What You Get. If you've ever looked at HTML code, you know what a revolution this really was. With mark-up languages, text is buried in formatting code. With WYSIWYG, text displays with formatting already applied. Separating the stitches for each fabric layer is like a WYSIWYG display for double knitting. No longer do you have to parse out the intervening stitches to see the pattern. What's on the needles is what you're going to get in the fabric. This little ditty says it all.
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