I have heard that pressing acrylic is a way of changing the nature of the knitted fabric to give it a silky draping quality and I was keen to give it a go.
I knitted up a 33 stitch swatch of acrylic double knitting on 6mm needles, the first couple of inches was a vintage bedjacket pattern with a 16 row repeat that finally defeated me after 10 rows, so I decided to carry on with a simple yo lace stitch then I tried a couple of variations on what one person called sloppy stocking stitch (yo every other stitch on the knit row, slip yos on the purl row) this looked remarkably like the old oddpins method from the 80s where you knitted on two differently sized needles. Then I repeated the sloppy and oddpins methods using garter stitch.
Despite the shape of the piece I assure you there were no increases in the piece - the shape comes from the varying tension of each stitch type.
This is the original piece:
It is 19 inches across and the texture is as you'd expect from double knitting.After killing the yarn with a hot steam iron:
It is a good deal larger and flatter :)It is now 23" across and much finer and has a drape and a sheen
The oranginess on the picture below is not because I burnt it, but the flash reflecting off the surface - not something that you normally see on an acrylic jumper!
I'm going to try now and create a shrug/bedjacket loosely based on this pattern but with a bit of killing and holey bits thrown in :) Linda Shoup's Triple S Shrug
