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Knitting Friday

 

OK, I think I have a ton of knitting stuff to share with you today so let me get right to it.

#1 Starting a ruffled scarf

 I promised you a very simple way to make one of those popular ruffled scarves and pic #1 shows you the most difficult part of this project: winding the yarn around a cone. Because if you don't, this yarn twists on itself horribly. I'm using a cone of some Lion Brand lace. A lot of knitters say to use the cylinder from toilet paper. That's OK, but yarn cones are much sturdier.

 

What you need for this project is a K hook, coned yarn. and either the time to finish this project in one sitting or a place to place it between working on it. You can't toss this in your knitting bag without disaster.

 

#2 Work from the top

My ruffled yarn is slightly different than other brands because they have one side slightly thinner than the other; my yarn has a thick ribbon-like side (green) which sort of shouts: Don't work on my side.

 

Here are the steps I used:

1. Cone your yarn.

2. Get a K hook*

3. Fold under the raw edge end where you will start working about 4 times. This will bring the raw edge inside and you won't see it (In #2, the bottom of the scarf (on right of pic) is that folded raw edge. It's secure and it looks finished. You will treat this folded over end as one layer and when you pick up a loop from the top of this end (purple) , you will go through the 4 layers but only pick up one loop.

4. Starting from your folded over raw edge from the top of your yarn (top purple in pic #2), bring your hook through every other loop 10 times. (Note: at the raw edge to make it more secure, you could pick up every loop.)

#3 10 loops on the hook

5. In pic #3, you can see the loops on the hook. Just bringing the hook through the top loops puts them on the hook; you really are doing no craft work here.

6. Once the 10 loops are on the hook, mark them as #1 - the first one near the hook end, #2 - the second one near the hook end, etc. and proceed to take #2 over #1 and off the hook then #3 over #1 and off the hook, etc., until you are back down to one loop on the hook.

#4 Back down to one loop

 7. In pic #4 you're back down to one loop on the hook.

8. The rest of the project is just adding and removing the loops to the length of the scarf.

*This project is really not knitting or crocheting. It's just sliding loops onto a hook and using your fingers to bind them off. So you could use an appropriate sized needle instead of a hook.

 

I haven't finished this scarf yet so I will post the finishing off next week but I'm thinking this is going to be a simple finish as with all these scarves; just be sure you have secured the final loop, sewing it in place if necessary, because these babies unravel in a flash. This scarf is 3" wide and 34" at present. It's a very, very fast project. But having said that, I would never buy this ruffled yarn again. I think it's worse to work with than fake fur though ff seems to have more types of projects. The ruffled yarn seems doomed to make scarves, though it does have a shawl pattern which I just can't decipher.

 

And now it's confession time. I swore about 6 months ago never to buy yarn again except for special gifts. However, last week Knit Picks had a one week alpaca sale; baby alpaca no less. For three days I was just tempted; on the fourth day, I fell off the wagon.The lace alpaca was delivered yesterday. It is soooo soft. I want to raise baby alpacas. I would pet them all day.

 

Which brings me to my alpaca shawl, whose alpaca must come from a grumpy, grizzled old beast since it is warm but definitely not soft. This is the shawl which started as a little girl's coat, morphed into 4 shawl incarnations, all of them with major coverage problems (too much, too little.) Remember?

#5 Unblocked: 25" x 47"

 

Well, I can now report that this current version of the traveling alpaca shawl will be the last.

# 6 Blocked: 31" x 61"

As you can see right and left, this time it works.

I worked my typical shawl pattern: knitting at the bottom with 2 increases each row, each end (4 per row.) Then at the length, I knitted straight with a YO, K2tog/SSK each side to keep the open lace look. However, as you can see, that straight knitting didn't last long because, I find, knitting getting very tedious with heavy yarn. So I just bound off and picked up the same size hook as the needles (US 13, K hook) and worked even to my width. Blocking added 6" to the width and 14" to the length. I'm wearing it as I type and I'm toasty.

I've spent a lot of time crocheting this week because I conned myself into buying this lace-weight alpaca by promising to work on all the wool lace-weight yarn I have. However, I've learned only to crochet lace yarn not to knit it. Not that I don't love the look of knitted lace but life is too short for the angst of pulling out knitted lace-weight. So, I'm looking for airy crocheted patterns for lace. (When I say I have a lot of lace, that's not a brag. I love lace. We all have our quirks.)

My first foray into crocheted wool lace-weight is the summer mesh shawl from Lion Brand which I linked to last week:

http://www.lionbrand.com/patterns/L10288.html?noImages=;utm_source=20111216_Dec16_Split2;utm_medium=Emails;utm_campaign=Weeklynewsletter;utm_content=P-rochetShimmerMeshShawlBag

Last Friday, I showed you this Summer Mesh in crochet thread. Here it is in red wool lace:

#7 Summer Mesh in wool lace

 

On the left, you get to see it before tinking.

#8 Just before tinking

On the right, the yarn blob shows the mistake I found. The good news is that I'm back to longer than pic #7 by now.

OK, I have more but let me leave you will a fun project if you want to do some experimenting.

 

http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/a-little-of-this-a-little-of-that-shawlette 

 

Terri DiLibero from Ravelry has designed her first shawl (link above) and I've been playing with it in my spare time, basically to see that if I need to make it longer, there is a non-increase row I can repeat. (Row 9 looks like a candidate for this so far.) It's a crocheted shawl so mistakes you make when reading a pattern cold are easy to fix. Take a look at it. She put a lot of time into it and she generously is offering it free. I'm picturing it as a shorter summer cover-up (Just work to Row 9 and then repeats of that row?)

 

And finally, another plug for Ravelry especially since so many of my pattern picks link to it. This is the most awesome place to get knitting/crocheting help and ideas. Don't not join it because you think it's a social site and you're a lone crafter. It is a social site if you want it to be but you can also be a "Lone Crafter" and cruise this site for hundreds/thousands of hints, patterns, yarn requirements, etc. The price of admission (that's just a saying, there is NO cost to join Ravelry) is worth it just to see all the specs on a project you might be planning. For example, you can plug in your pattern's name and get such help as yarn ideas, helpful hints, and pictures of finished projects. Or you can just search on words like "raglan", "Estonian", "300 yards, fingering" - the list is almost endless. You get to see patterns which are exclusively posted on Ravelry and patterns from outside sites for which another Raveler has posted the link. It's a win-win situation. 

 

OK, that's it for this Friday. For all of you celebrating this week and weekend, Happy Holiday. See you next week.