Double Knit Afghan - Flowers and Dragons

DK Dragon and Flowers

Double knit (DK) has great things about it. Two layers of knit for extra wormth, and the ability to switch colors to form wonderful images on the fabric.  That being said there are two major downsides.  Due to the fact that you are knitting two layers you need use twice the amount of yarn and spend twice the amout of time on the project.  I forgot this last negative when I had agreed to add an edging to Cook's afghan.

Last year I had made a (DK) afghan for cook, that is the brown and green that you see as the main body.  He loved it except one tiny detail, it wasn't big enough.  It needed both more length and width.  So this year I finally got around to giving it an edging all around.  I went through many ideas ranging from crochet to knit.  That is until I came across a dragon pattern for filet crochet, found here.  Even though the chart if for filet crochet I used it without any modifications.  The dragons did come out a little long and squat but they look fine.  The pattern for the flower/labarinth that can be found in the corners and between dragons on the long side was found in the book Extreme Double Knitting by Alasdair Post-Quinn.  It is actually an exercise found on page 96 of the book called Algiers/Flower, it's an exercise for two pattern DK.  I'm not certain if he offers the pattern else where, it does not seem to be on Ravelry.  The yarn used was Simply Soft by Caron, needle size 7.  More detailed information on the actual yardage and what not can be found on the projects Ravelry page.  More pictures to follow the read more, I didn't want to overload the main blog with too many pictures.

Light Summer Jacket

Baby Alpaca Jacket

A light summer jacket made from baby alpaca thread.


Yarn:
Cascade Yarns
Baby Alpaca Lace
Hunter Green 1400 dye lot 6917
1 skein = 437 yards

Hook is 2 mm

Total skeins came to 4, total yards came to 1748 yards

The pattern is a diagram:

I repeated this, joining each square as needed.  Fairly simple actually.

Red Shirt Pot Holder

I came across a grid of the Star Trek comm badge and was like, "Ooo, I have to make this!"  So I whipped it out in double knit and both sides are of proper orientation.

The yarn was some of the kitchen cotton you can pick up practically anywhere, Sugar and Creme I think.  The needle was size 7.

The diagram