Interlocking Knit

What's interlocking knit got to do with writing? I was skimming article titles for Demand Studios yesterday and came across "Interlocking Knit Instructions". I was taken back 35 or so years in memory. My Mother didn't learn to knit until she was 60 and she seemed to be in a race against time to learn every stitch available. She learned what she called Double Knit. The way she worked it was to carry one thread in each hand, work the right thread English knitting style and work the left thread in Continental knitting style. This intrigued me because in Continental knitting you pick the thread much as you do in crochet and it was easier for me than throwing the thread as in English knitting.

We sat for an afternoon knitting and I knit my sons reversible ski caps with their initials on them. I've tried several times since then to work the interlocking knit stitch, but I kept coming out with a stockinette stitch on one side and a garter stitch on the other. Granted it was a double knit, but not what Mama had taught me.

I decided to claim that title and went to work researching looking for instructions and information. Information proved to be sparse, but I found a couple of sites that jogged my memory, so I went digging through my craft materials for knitting needles and yarn.

To my dismay I found that I had given all my knitting needles to my daughter except a pair of double point size 1's and a stray size 8 that didn't have a mate. To make matters worse, the only yarn I had was worsted weight.

I was determined to work a sample of double knit because no matter how well I research it, if I can't actually do it my article won't be coherent. So here I sit with a pair of size 1 knitting needles and two very similar colors of worsted weight yarn, working a double knit hot pad. Surprisingly it's working out well enough to see that it is actually working. Yay! I have a hot pad with stockinette stitch on both sides and reverse designs on each side. Now I can sit down and write the article.