This is my first doubleknitting attempt. Here are the resulting doubleknitting tips:

• A yarn separator is a must. (It’s a ring-like thing that goes on your index finger and has uprights and a cap so the two yarns go through they’re own channels. I got mine at Webs.) Without it, I found no way to knit naturally, without having to essentially throw each yarn, even though I knit the Continental way.
• Keep the yarn that is the front yarn in front while you are working stitches and keep the yarn that is the back yarn in the back while you are working stitches. In other words, when you’re purling, that stitch is part of the back of the work, so the unused yarn should be on top when you do the purl. When you are knitting, the unused yarn should be behind your working yarn and behind the resulting knit stitch. Thinking about it this way helped me more than “don’t twist your yarn”, which is what most of the instructions say. I’m only using the chart from the Pistol Potholder pattern but following the instructions from knittinghelp.com’s doubleknitting instructions.
• When you make a mistake, you can just slip the stitches in a column down to the mistake and pick up the yarn color you want from behind the stitches. I reversed a column of about 14 stitches this way, taking the pink and black to the opposite sides than I originally had them.

I used the backward loop cast-on, which is shown clearly in this YouTube video. I used only the black for the cast-on. It is definitely NOT the optimal cast-on as that edge looks different from all the rest. What I did to rectify that is whip stitch, picking up the V at the top of the cast-on edge AND the green dots just under the cast-on edge. This made it more compatible with the other edges, but I wish I had figured out a better cast-on to start with.

Here’s what I did to cast off, which worked beautifully. I did NOT change needle size.

1. The knittinghelp.com instructions noted above tell you to slip the first stitch of each row, which I did except for this cast-off row, where I knit the first stitch.
2. Work the next two stitches in normal doubleknitting fashion.
3. Pass the first stitch over the two you just worked.
4. Work the next two stitches in normal doubleknitting fashion.
5. Treating the first two stitches on the right needle as one stitch, pass it over the two stitches just worked.
6. Repeat steps 4 and 5 to the end.

What this cast-off does is pulls one stitch over a front stitch and a back stitch, which is exactly what you want. With a normal cast-off, both the front and back stitch create width and the edge is flared out.

I did 24 rows of icord in alternating colors.

I’m rating this medium difficulty because following a chart when you can’t really see the row you just worked and getting it right on both sides was very time-consuming and required a lot of patience, fixing of mistakes, and time. It wasn’t as hard as the companion potholder because the design is blockier, which meant there was less difficult tracking of the chart.

This is the companion to HilaryWithOneL’s Grenade Potholder for Paul.

Finally, I feel the need to point out that Paul, my brother, is an ardent pacifist. He loves ridiculous representations of guns, bombs, etc. I figured knitted potholder representations will fit right in with the rest of his collection.