Double Knitting part 2

Alright, now that everyone has cast on for their raindrops scarf, we are ready to dive in, right? Well even if you haven't started a double knit project right away, I hope to show you that its really not all that hard. 

 Remember in my last post, how I said the first couple stitches could be a tad more challenging. Well that's why I took pictures part way through a row. The knit stitch should look and feel familiar to you.

 The key is to bring both strands of yarn wherever you are going. So I brought both yarns forward before I could purl my second stitch (or second half of this stitch as every stitch is paired)

 Then the only tricky-ish part is grabbing only the contrasting color for the purl stitch (that's not really tricky, is it?)

So here's what it looks like up-close. You can count the paired stitches fairly easily, right? 

However, like most knitting, it doesn't look too pretty until after the stitches you are assessing are farther from the needle. In double knitting this is because the paired stitches are forced to sit next to one another. After a few inches, the lower parts of the work will have relaxed so the paired stitches are able to sit on top of one another. So if yours looks like this, know that's exactly what mine looked like too. 

This pair of photographs is from the contrast color side. I wanted to show how to slip the first stitches of the row to neaten up the edges a bit. These are not twisted slip stitches, so they do flair out a bit before the piece is blocked. I found it the simplest to be consistent (knit the knits, purl the purls, slip the knits as if to knit, slip the purls as if to purl). Again, be sure that both yarns go along for the ride.