Done the Beginner’s class and ready to move on from double-knitted make pot-holders, coasters and scarves? Then this is the class for you.

Double-knitting is a fantastic technique for creating reversible, double-squishy fabric with no unsightly wrong sides, and can be used for many different purposes. If you want to take your double-knitting to the next level, you are going to need to know a little bit more than how to make the standard stocking-stitch-on-both-sides fabric that we all know and love.

I’ll show you how to execute a variety of different types of both increases and decreases, and tell you where you might want to use each of them to their best effect. Once you get to grips with what is possible, the possibilities are endless. This really IS the future of double-knitting!

Level:
Intermediate to advanced. This is a class that will be suitable for proficient knitters with some experience of double-knitting, who are looking to expand their horizons.

Skills Needed:
You will need to be proficient in standard, two-colour double-knitting, creating a fabric that shows as stocking stitch on both sides. You will need to know how to cast on in two colours, alternating knit and purl stitches, to set up for DK, and you will need to know how to perform the Slip-Stitch Edge technique for creating neat and tidy edges that lock the two faces of your fabric together. I have video tutorials on my YouTube channel for both the cast on and the edges. Search “Sockmatician” on the YouTube website.

Materials To Bring:
You will need about 20g of each of two colours of yarn, worked into the swatch described below. Use two highly contrasting colours, and a nice smooth yarn that is not too grippy.

Homework:
A swatch worked as follows:
Using DK-weight yarn, and appropriately sized needles, cast on 20 PAIRS of stitches (40sts in total), using any two-colour, alternating cast on you like, and work about 8-10 rows of standard double-knitting, where both faces of the fabric display stocking stitch. Do not work any colour changes, so that you will have colour A on one side, and colour B on the other with no pattern showing.
DO NOT CAST OFF YOUR SWATCH! We will continue knitting it in the class.

About Sockmatician:

Nathan Taylor, (aka Sockmatician on Ravelry, Instagram, YouTube and Twitter) is obsessed with double-knitting! He has been knitting seriously since 2011, and designing since around the same time. His passion is for sharing his knowledge of DK with as many people as possible, and pushing the boundaries, and furthering what is possible within the realms of this addictive and beautiful technique.
His first published design was in Knit Now! Magazine, and in 2015, he was approached by Vogue Knitting Magazine in the USA to design a DK Shawl for their Fall 2015 issue. That design has recently been included in the book Vogue Knitting: Shawls and Wraps 2. He was especially proud in 2016 to be able to contribute a design to the very first issue of the new knitting magazine for men, Rib Magazine. The start of 2017 saw him being contacted by The Knitter Magazine to design a DK/brioche hybrid hat for them.

Nathan hosts a very popular knitting podcast on YouTube, and particularly champions male knitters, with a view to getting not only more men into knitting, but also getting more patterns aimed at men out there. His YouTube channel also has many tutorials for the many and varied techniques involved in knitting his patterns, and Nathan is dedicated to making these tutorials as friendly, and as easy to understand as possible. As a result of his work in these fields, Nathan was the recipient of one of Knit Now! Magazine’s Knitter of the Year awards, in the Online Innovator category.

He has been teaching double-knitting classes for the last few years, and enjoys nothing so much as seeing that lightbulb moment, when someone’s brain clicks, and he knows that a new DKer has been born.

2017 has seen Nathan teaching the DarK Art of Double-Knitting at knitting retreats and yarn shops across the UK and beyond, as well as giving classes and workshops at the Edinburgh Yarn Festival, Birmingham’s Yarningham show, Nottingham Yarn Expo, and the Perth Festival of Yarn in Scotland, and at the prestigious Rhinebeck Sheep and Wool Festival in New York State.

Taking a class with Nathan is not the same as sitting at home watching one of his tutorials. He has a boundless enthusiasm for the subject, and limitless patience with the process. His knowledge and understanding of the subject far exceeds what can be put into a short video, and he knows that every knitter is different, and that everyone needs different things in order to be able to pick something up effectively. Understanding this is the key to good teaching, and Nathan has spent a lifetime studying human nature, in his other life as a West End actor, so adapting his teaching methods to the individual knitter in front of him comes easily. Be it clear and succinct description and explanation, or where appropriate and comfortable, hands-on demonstrations, Nathan gives the kind of teaching that just can’t be found anywhere else, and makes each knitter feel like they are being taught in a one-to-one session, regardless of the size of the class.