Double-Knitting Adventures - 2020 and Non-reversible Double-Knitting

I love double-knitting, but double-knitting words or numbers that can be read from both sides was a challenge that seemed far in my future until I read a discussion about reading charts in the Ravelry Double-Knitting Group.

I had just finished this "Skog" hot pad project using two charts, one for the back and one for the front. The two layers are knitted at the same time so that when a stitch is red on this side, the reverse-side stitch is gold, and the layers interlock where the colors change.

The discussion was about why reading charts can be difficult.

I have to make my own charts because most patterns only provide a single chart, with the knitting read from right to left for the front, and from left to right for the back. 

I was constantly getting confused, trying to sort out left-right, back-front, dark-light. Having two charts let me focus on holding my yarns and getting even tension instead of on reading and interpreting a single chart.

With two charts, I know, if I knit a dark stitch for the front, I next purl a light stitch for the back. That doesn't work for for a chart like 2020 because knitting a dark stitch on the front isn't always followed by purling a light stitch for the back. 

Here are the charts I made for 2020. Gray means dark on the front a light on the back, and white means light on the front and dark on the back as in normal double-knitting. 

Gold means that both the front and back stitches are light. Blue means that both the front and back stitches are dark.

It was fun figuring out how to use Excel to make the charts. It turned out to be an easy process once I understood how to set up Excel's "conditional formatting."

I still had my two charts, one for the front and one for the back, so that I could read my knitting from right to left as usual.

The proof would come if I could knit up what I charted...

By the time I reached the halfway point, I knew my charts were working but I still have a long way to go on my tension. Where the color is the same on back and front, the unused color is carried inside the two layers. It looks like I will need to put more tension on the unused yarn so that it does not show in between the opposite color stitches.

Here is the front side of "2020 Happy Double-Knitting New Year!"


My Ravelry project notes are here.









Here you can see that 2020 reads correctly on both sides - not a reverse image - this is a "non-reversible image."

And here is the back side.

This was a rewarding project. I learned a lot and hope to improve more as the new year unfolds!