This One's a "Two-Fer"

That is, "two for one," two knitting topics covered by one photo and one post, namely Sampler M and double knitting.

I can't really count my Sampler (C)M as a finished object, since the sampler is a work in progress. But it is now a caught-up object: I finished pattern 9, a brioche rib, pattern 10, and pattern 11, which was a section of knit-side-out double knitting.

We have knitted two brioche patterns in the Sampler M now, and they are really interesting to me, because they can be wrapped and knitted on a double-rake knitting board very easily. I have already tried the first one and figured out how to do it. Now I have to figure out how to do the second one.

In case the caption below the photos in the pattern aren't legible, they say "front" and "back". Naturally since this pattern is double-knitted, the knit side is out, and it's hollow or tubular. It's sealed off at both ends with rows of regular flat knitting, but you could separate the layers onto two needles and stuff that section into a puffy little pillow.

I was knitting this sampler with something you can't buy any more, acrylic "Knit-Cro-Sheen". I had two more balls that I thought were the same, and I wanted to use up the one with no ball band first. But when I joined the new ball to the end of the old ball, I discovered they are different: one is "S-plied" (the plies make a "\\" or left-leaning diagonal) and the other is "Z-plied" (the plies make the opposite "//" right-leaning diagonal). The new thread is also very slightly thinner in size.

But it's not enough difference to make a big difference in the knitting: I joined the two in the middle of the double-knitted section, and in the photo, I can't pick out where the switch is.

One interesting question that I keep getting over and over with the sampler is, "Now what is this going to be?"

I keep having to explain over and over that it's a sampler: it isn't going to be a scarf or a hat or a blanket or a pair of mittens or a thneed. It seems like the whole idea of a sampler, a piece you make to try out patterns and feel how they work, has been lost in the 21st century.

Okay, not totally lost: the 800+ members of the Sampler M Yahoo group have all found it!