Cast on

I did a two color long-tail cast on with US 2 (2.75 mm) needles. My cast-on edge flares a bit and could have benefited from being done with a size smaller needle.

Selvedge

The double knitting tutorial included with the pattern doesn’t give any special instructions for the edge stitches other than to twist the yarn to keep the two fabrics together. Though I think the sample photos show a slip-stitch selvedge. (Ah, the designer’s double knitting tutorial on their site does recommend a slip-stitch selvedge.)

I had trouble getting a nice edge after 15 rows or so and started over with a slip-stitch selvedge I’ve used with double-knitting before:

• with two stitches remaining in row, slip first stitch with both yarns in back, then move the yarn that will knit the first stitch of the next row to front and slip last stitch. When purling the first stitch of the next row, make sure the two yarns twist to link the side together.

Shorter scarf with half a repeat

I didn’t swatch before starting, because it’s a scarf, but my gauge ended up being larger than the pattern’s (I got 28x36 sts/4” -- I might try to find a US 1.5 needle for my next Lisa Hannan Fox pattern). Also my intended recipient is not tall. Also double knitting is sloow. So I decided to shorten the pattern a bit.

My first thought was to do only 2 repeats of Chart 2, but that would have been a little too short (58”). I tried just adding some plain knitting after Chart 3 to make it a few inches longer; that probably would have looked fine, but I was afraid it was breaking up the tiling cats too much.

So I hacked up Chart 2 into a half a chart that still tiles with Chart 3 (see photos) so I could do 2.5 repeats of Charts 2 and 4 (instead of 3 repeats). This gave me a finished size of 65”. I flipped the direction of the left-looking outline cat to avoid too much repetition, which means I also needed to flip Chart 3. So I knit it like: Chart 1, Chart 2 x2, Chart 2.5, Chart 3 (upside down so it tiles with Chart 2.5), Chart 4.5, Chart 4 x2, Chart 5.

Bind-off
I don’t know a two-color bind-off to match the two-color long-tail cast on (maybe just a sewn half-hitch bind-off with one of the colors?) so I just did an in-pattern bind-off with the white yarn. The bind-off flares even more than my cast on, but I’m hoping it will block somewhat square.

I weaved in ends by doing a few stitches of duplicate stitch and then left ~1.5” ends between the two fabrics.

Total stitches: 49,224!