Knitting Two At A Time

A friend of mine has asked me to make her a pair of mittens in her school colours, to match the beanie I made her a month or so ago. Earlier this year I finally finished my first pair of socks, which I had started in 2011. I didn’t find making socks difficult, but after I finished the first one, I got bored and it was literally years before I picked up the project again to finish it. I have the same problem any time I have to make two of something, socks, sleeves, mittens, etc. So I vowed to myself that I would learn how to knit two at a time, and this is the first project I’ve taken on since then that involved a pair of items.

After a bit of searching, I found this great tutorial.

This technique uses a single circular needle – there are also instructions out there for knitting two at a time using two circulars, but since I’m already comfortable with magic loop knitting, I specifically searched for instructions that used a single needle.

There’s one addition I’d make to the tutorial, based on the way I join to knit in the round. It took me years to feel comfortable knitting in the round because I could never get the join tight, and always ended up with a ladder between the first and last stitches. I finally found a suggestion somewhere on the web to cast on an extra stitch, and knit it together with the first stitch. After that, there was no stopping me.

So, to use this joining method with the knitting two at a time technique:
After casting on for the second item in the pair, slip the extra stitch to a locking or split-ring stitch marker, then continue to the second half of the first item in the pair. That way, when you get back to the second item, you’ll be able to slip the extra stitch to your needle and knit it together with the first stitch.