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Date Begun:
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02/09/08
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Date Completed:
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03/12/08
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Yarn:
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Lion Brand Wool-Ease in Grey Heather
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Needles:
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US8 Circular (metal)
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Source:
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Lion Brand Yarn, Seed Stitch Ruffled Wrap
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The Story:
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It's kind of rare that I actually make something for myself. Most of the things I knit are done as gifts for other people or as time-fillers while I'm waiting on something. This project was something I'd seen on the Lion Brand Yarn website and thought it looked really pretty and warm. I didn't know exactly what it was going to look like because I couldn't find anything ANYwhere that showed me the back of it. So I went into it a little blind, but I knew I liked the look of the front bit enough to give it a go.
So after 8 balls of yarn and a broken knitting needle wire from the weight, it ended up waaaaaay longer than I expected it to be, but it appeals to my taste for the dramatic. As you can see from the bottom two pictures, when I'm wearing it, it hangs below my knees and when I'm sitting down, it almost hits the floor. I made sure my photographer got a good shot of the entire shape so that when other people are considering this pattern, they'll know what they're going to get.
My newest cube is really cold, so even though it's nice and warm outside, I've needed something to keep my arms warm while I'm at my desk. I decided to take my wrap to work and I've gotten a lot of compliments from my coworkers.
I usually use a circular knitting needle for most things, and I got a modular system ages ago, with plastic "wires" that screw into metal needle tips. It's great because I have pretty much every size needles I could ever want. Well. The ruffle ended up at about 1000 stitches around, so the weight and the sheer number of them ended up breaking the wire I was using, as well as bending others when I replaced the broken one. I'm going to have to see if I can dig up some way to get a new wire.
SO. This yarn was the same stuff I used to make the Fingerless Gloves and I think I like it better for this kind of an application. It does have a small amount of wool in it, so that means I end up swallowing a fair amount of fibers over the course of a project, but that's okay because the result is so warm. It leaves a very small amount of fuzz on the clothes I wear under it, too, which I find a little annoying. But did I mention it's warm?
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Date Begun:
(L to R)
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1: 02/06/08
2: 01/13/08
3: 01/12/08
4: 03/01/08
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Date Completed:
(L to R)
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1: 02/09/08
2: 01/14/08
3: 01/13/08
4: 03/17/08
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Yarn:
(L to R)
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Lily Sugar'n Cream Ombres & Prints
1: Sun-Kissed
2: Citrus Fruits
3: Sun-Kissed
4: Key Lime Pie
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Needles:
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US7 Circular (metal)
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Source:
(L to R)
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Kitchen Bright Dishcloths
1: Slanted Squares
2: Bee Stitch
2: Trinity Stitch
4: Climbing Lattice
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The Story:
|
In the course of teaching some other folks to knit, I was looking for some easy, quick projects to give them that AREN'T SCARVES. Funny thing - knitters by and large get extremely sick of scarves after the first 3-4 they do. I know that's certainly happened to me. Unless someone requests a scarf specifically, I have no intentions of ever making one again. But not everyone is immediately ready to jump into sweaters and afghans. So dishcloths are nice because they're kind of like mini-scarves.
But the other funny thing about teaching people to knit is that the best way to know the problems is to do the pattern personally. So I now have four hand-knit dishcloths that I will probably never use. But that's okay because they make excellent small projects to take along when I travel or on the train to San Francisco. They're simple enough that once I understand the pattern, I can pretty much turn my brain off so the knitting is mindless therapy. I haven't quite decided what I'm going to do with them. They're pretty enough that I've thought about framing them and hanging them on the wall in my sewing room, but I know they'd also be great as little housewarming gifts or something.
There are 12 patterns in the book. I've only done 4 of the patterns, but I fully expect to do more later when I need something quick between larger projects. The first two (2 and 3 listed) I did because my knitting "students" chose those as the ones they wanted to try. The third one I did because it looked interesting. The last one was chosen by Schondy because he liked the way it looked.
I was going to write out a little explanation about each one of these, but I realized there's not much more I can say. :-)
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Date Begun:
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11/17/2007
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|
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Date Completed:
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11/18/2007
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Yarn:
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Moda Dea Tweedle Dee in Surf & Turf
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Needles:
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US11 Circular (metal)
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Source:
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Hoodie Sweater from Stylish Knits for Dogs
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The Story:
|
Go ahead. Get it out of your system. Laugh at me endlessly for knitting sweaters for my dog. I'll wait....
.
.
.
.
You done?
.
Good.
.
Now. This sweater for Lulu was knitted because she's a very small dog - 15 lbs. - and she gets C-O-L-D!! (You would, too, if you only weighed 15 lbs. and ran around naked all the time) So I've made a couple of sweaters for her, including this one. I got a little tired of everyone saying how she looked "ready for the holidays" in her other sweater, and I wanted something that might keep her a little warmer as the other sweater is made from an acrylic yarn (not known for their warmth). So this one has a bit of wool thrown in and the style of the sweater is such that it'll keep her tummy as warm as her back.
The trick with dachshunds is that they're just not shaped like "normal" dogs. Assuming you've avoided creating a Spherical Dachshund they will have tiny little waists with enormous, barrel chests. Most dog sweaters are designed for dogs that are basically the same diameter from stem to stern with very little space between their front legs. This.... is not so helpful to me.
So I've been on the lookout for patterns that I could easily modify to fit my little dachshund - thus the "holiday" sweater. This pattern, though, for the hoodie, was not so easily modified. It was just too cute for me to pass up, though. The pattern calls for the chest piece to be knitted in a rough triangle, with the base of the triangle around the dog's waist and the top point at the dog's neck.
So I pretty much flipped the triangle over. :-) Base at neck, point at waist. And that worked really, really well. Of course, that meant that the neck line, instead of being this little-bitty hole around which the collar/hood would lie flat, became an enormous (and really funny-looking) gap that I had to cinch up around the front. Thank goodness there was supposed to be a hood. In the first few rows of the hood, I decreased a total of... something like 18 stitches, which means that it looks almost like I meant it to be like that. And it fits her nicely.
Best of all, it's something that Schondy isn't completely embarrassed for her to wear as they're waiting outside the coffee shop for me. He actually picked that sweater out from several.
.
.
.
.
.
Oh, now, wait. Don't you laugh at him. He only picked because he knew it was going to happen with or without him.
.
Fine. But when your dog starts shivering and giving you those sad eyes, we'll see who you call.
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Date Begun:
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11/20/2007
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|
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Date Completed:
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12/02/2007
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Yarn:
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Red Heart Sport in Yellow and Black
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Needles:
|
US9 DPN (bamboo)
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Source:
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Knitted police tape from robotclothes
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The Story:
|
Okay, if you know me, you know I tend to gravitate towards funny, quirky things. I've never been known for coloring inside the lines, so much. So when I saw this pattern for a police tape scarf, I thought it was awesome. Just knew I'd be working on it at some point. Little did I realize that it would become a project sooner, rather than later.
So, back in the beginning of November, I started getting serious about taking care of my Christmas shopping/knitting/etc. and realized that this would be absolutely perfect for my brother-in-law. And it met with extremely enthusiastic support from Schondy, who (for better or worse) gets final veto on all presents destined for his brother. Given that we were going home for Thanksgiving, I knew I was going to need something small to work on (i.e. NOT an afghan) and I've been itching to try knitting something that's more than one color and isn't just simple stripes.
Basically, what I'm saying is that it fit the bill in a lot of ways. I wasn't so thrilled about the idea of another scarf, but if that's what needed to be done, I wasn't going to turn my nose up at it.
ANYwho. From the start and end dates, you can tell that this was a quick knit and it turned out really nice, I thought. Lulu and Miles approved, too. If I ever do another one of these, there are a few things I'll change - like knitting it on the round instead of flat - and I'll probably choose a different yarn, mostly because this one turned out to be a bit thinner than what I ultimately wanted.
But I do think that since this represented a lot of "first"s for me, the result was great. And best of all, it was made it there in time for Christmas and was well-received. Yay me!
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Date Begun:
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10/13/2007
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Date Completed:
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10/14/2007
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Yarn:
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Patons Rumor in Fern Heather and Hawthorn Heather
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Needles:
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US10 Circular (metal)
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Source:
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Knitted toque with earflaps from Canadian Living
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The Story:
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I really enjoy knitting, regardless of the project, but I do like it when my projects are actually things that people want. So I asked Schondy if there was something he wanted, and I think we just happened to be watching one of my favorite shows, Survivorman!! It was the episode where Les is in the Canadian Arctic, and he had on this great intarsia hat with earflaps. And Schondy said he liked it. I was floored. A project like that could be loads of fun, but I never would have thought he was one for a tuque.
So off I went to find a suitable pattern. I was really hoping for something kind of manly (good luck with that!), and I actually wanted to try my hand at some color work beyond just stripes. I've done enough at this point that I really want to get into more interesting patterns. Alas, I couldn't meet both criteria AND be sure it was something he'd like. But then I found this thing with a teeeeeeeeeensy picture. There were NO pictures of this one any larger than half a postage stamp anywhere that I could find. So I went into this a little blind.
The really nice thing was that it literally took me 1 day to knit the thing - start to finish - but I have to say it's a bit more "crude" than what I really wanted. It's perfect for the hubby - has earflaps, is manly, has green in it - but if I were to make something for myself, I'd steer clear of this one and go for something with a bit more detail. The most interesting thing about this hat is that it's the first time I've ever crocheted anything that wasn't a test scrap (the green border around the edge is crochet) and I have to say I'm pretty proud of how it came out.
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Date Begun:
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08/15/2007
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Date Completed:
|
10/01/2007
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Yarn:
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Red Heart TLC Essentials in Autumn and Claret
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Needles:
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US10 Circular (metal)
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Source:
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My own design
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The Story:
|
The Multi yarn was something I would never buy, but Schondy picked it up and said he liked the way it looked (he's colorblind, so I humor him). My Knitting Group was doing scarves for the Red Scarf Project and I decided to use up the Multi on that, but then realized I wasn't going to have quite enough finish. Enter the Claret yarn. By the end of it, I was extremely bored with the whole thing and desperate for it to end so I could move on to other things.
I call it the "Formerly-Red Scarf Project" because I completely missed the deadline for turning it in and by the time I'd finished it, it had kind of grown on me, to the point that I held on to it. Right now it belongs to the hubby, but it could be that I hijack it periodically.
A quick note about the photography: As you've probably noticed, the photos of my knitting have steadily improved in quality over the last several months, and it is entirely due to the growing photography skills of Schondy.
In these photos are two of my newest non-knitting creations - the decoupage heads. There are a total of 4 of these and I hope to post so pictures of the whole set at some point. You can see a better shot of the Yellow Head in the entry for the other knitted item shown in this entry: The Earflap Hat.
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Date Begun:
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12/2006
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|
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Date Completed:
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07/25/2007
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Yarn:
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Brown Sheep Lamb's Pride Bulky in Onyx
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Needles:
|
US17 Circular (plastic) and US15 Circular (aluminum)
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Source:
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Stitch 'n Bitch Nation, "Razor's Edge"
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The Story:
|
I've always had something of a soft spot for all clothing flowy and dramatic. Could have something to do with my undying conviction that I was born in the wrong century or it could just be that sometimes it's nice to hide behind voluminous layers of fabric. Either way, when I saw this lovely poncho, I knew I had to have it, and the girl in the book certainly looked like she was thrilled to bits with it. :-)
This project had many, many "Firsts" for me, which was exciting, but also frustrating. I've done hats, scarves, socks and dog sweaters before, each of which took me a grand total of maybe 15-20 hours to knit (with the possible exception of the socks, which took a little longer because I'd never done anything that complicated before). This was the first thing larger than a scarf I'd ever knitted. And because I liked the way it looked so much, I declared I was going to get the exact yarn recommended. This was also the first time I'd ever worked with anything that wasn't acrylic, rayon or polyester. Say what you will about synthetic yarns, but they wash and wear like a dream and won't break the bank. But this gem is made of Brown Sheep Lamb's Pride, which is positively gorgeous, but it's 85% wool (and sheds like a dog in summer. I've had my lifetime intake of wool at this point) and it's not what you'd call cheap.
Anyway, the pattern was postively rife with errors, and that made it a little frustrating to work on. I hightly recommend that if you try this pattern, print out a copy of the errata and keep it close at hand, though I found even the errata to have some errors. It could be my completely-self-taught knitting self that just read the directions differently, but I found the lace pattern particularly hard to sort out. Once I tried it out about a thousand times, it finally clicked and I was able to plow on through. I've seen a lot of other knitters in various blogs who slammed the Razor's Edge for being badly designed, for not having much personality, and for various other reasons, but I found quite the opposite. I'm inclined to believe it had a lot to do with the yarn I used, but now that it's done, it has a lot of "body" and personality and I'm really proud of it.
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Date Begun:
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01/01/2007
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|
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Date Completed:
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09/15/2007
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Yarn:
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Lion Brand Incredible in Copper Penny
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Needles:
|
US8 Circular (metal)
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Source:
|
Yo! Drop It! from Stitch 'n Bitch Nation
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The Story:
|
Okay, so first of all, I would just like to say that it didn't actually take me that long to knit this. It actually took me 2-3 weeks... spread out over the course of almost 9 months. I originally knit this as a kind of lazy woman's Clapotis with the intentional ladders, so you had the openness in some of the stitches going sideways. I really, really liked it, but because of the slippery-ness of this ribbon yarn, my ladders all closed up the first time I tried to wear it. So I frogged it. Sadness.
But then I remembered a pattern I'd seen for a scarf in the Stitch 'n Bitch Nation book that combined dropped stitches with regular knit rows and knew that I could get a very similar effect to my original one, without the fragility of the original.
Unfortunately, this meant that I lost interest in knitting this particular scarf for months. I'd already knit it once and I wasn't terribly interested in doing so again. But then, the knitting bug bit HARD and I told myself that I couldn't move on to more exciting projects until I finished all my pending things.
It will be a long, long time before I feel the need to go back to using this particular kind of yarn again, but the result is pretty and colorful and fall-like, all of which make me happy.
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Date Begun:
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08/01/2007
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Date Completed:
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09/09/2007
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Yarn:
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Lion Brand Wool Ease in Wheat
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Needles:
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US3 DPNs (4 per glove)
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Source:
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Interweave Knits, Nicholas's Fingerless Gloves
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The Story:
|
This project started, believe it or not, when I was planning to knit a pair of socks for Schondy. I knew I didn't really have any good yarn for that, so I headed to the store to get some. Schondy, being a good sport 99% of the time, went along with me to the yarn store.
I don't remember what I was looking at, but Schondy pointed out this stuff, which is made of 86% acrylic, 10% wool and 4% rayon. Translation: nice and warm like wool, but it's completely machine washable and dryable. He made some comment about the fact that if I was going to make something for him, this would be a great yarn because it looks like Deliah has already been all over it, so no one will notice if it ends up covered in fur. We both laughed at that, and then I bought the yarn, thinking it would make great socks. And that was pretty much the end of that, because when faced with the actual task of socks, I kind of panicked and decided I wanted to use something cheap and ugly so I wouldn't care if they turned out horribly, and this yarn went back into storage, where it sat for the next 9 months or so.
Cut to: July of this year, after Schondy decided to take up photography, and one of the many times I was poking through online pattern sites, looking for inspiration. I ran across this glove pattern and HAD TO HAVE IT. It was a free pattern, which always makes me happy. But more importantly, I knew immediately it would look gorgeous in that yarn I'd bought a year ago. And best of all, fingerless gloves are the perfect thing for a photographer when the weather gets cold. They will keep his hands warm without preventing him from taking pictures. The cable was actually a very simple S1 K2tog, PSSO, done over and over and over again. It looks really complicated, but it's super easy to do. The hardest part was remembering where I was in the overall pattern.
(In the second picture on the right, I had stuck the needles into the skein just to hold them there for a minute, and we decided they looked like cows, complete with paperclip ear tags. We've called those gloves "cows" ever since.)
So when I finished them, Schondy tried them on (YES, I had him try them other times before they were done), and they were too small. Sadness. But I have a friend at work who said she must have a pair just like them and she has tiny hands, so..... well, let's just say they've gone into the closet where I keep the Christmas and birthday presents. And I will be starting another (slightly larger, man-sized) pair of these gloves soon.
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Date Begun:
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06/19/07
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Date Completed:
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07/01/07
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Yarn:
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TLC Amore in Garnet, Lion Brand Homespun in White
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Needles:
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US8 Circular (metal)
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Source:
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Puppy Knits, Foliage Striped Dog Jacket
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The Story:
|
So before you judge me for dressing up my dog, let me explain. Lulu is a wee dog. And wee dogs have trouble in cold weather, especially when they have short fur. This was extremely evident to us last winter when she was a baby and we were trying to housebreak her when it was below freezing outside. Literally, she would not go out without her coat. She would just stand there in the grass, shivering. It broke my heart.
That was when we bought her a coat that didn't fit her well, mostly because she was sooooo tiny, and also, a wiener dog, and not shaped like most of the dogs out there. It was too long, but it had to be that long to match the deepness of her chest, and that meant it was too big around the neck, so she kept stepping through the collar, and so I pretty much safety-pinned it to her and just prayed none of the pins would pop open. I felt really bad about it - bad enough that I swore to her that I'd find her a better coat before next winter or I'd make one.
So earlier this summer, a friend loaned me a book she had bought with dog coat patterns for knitting, and I found this pattern. I really liked the way it didn't assume she had long legs that needed to be kept warm (she doesn't), and it didn't assume that her body length was "proportional" (whatever that means) to her leg length (it isn't)... because I could knit it as long as I wanted. :-) So I did.
It took me a grand total of about 10 hours to knit the whole thing, accomplished over the course of a plane trip home and it fits her just fine. I did have a bit of trouble with the end of it curling up, so I'll have to do something about that. I also wasn't terribly interested in having a stripy dog, so I eliminated the stripes in favor of a deep red. The yarn was cheeeeeeap (and acrylic, so it's completely washable), but that was okay, because it means I don't really mind if she finds a mud puddle while we're out walking.
I wasn't trying to make a holiday outfit for her, but it appears that's what I ended up with. I've bought another dog coat book with patterns I like so I can make a non-holiday coat for her as well. She loves to wear clothes, and she leaves them alone completely, so long as they don't have tags she can pull on. I think it's mostly because every time we took her outside when she was so tiny, we put her coat on her and she got used to it then. She just likes to chew on the tags.
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Date Begun:
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11/15/2006
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Date Completed:
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11/30/2006
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Yarn:
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Jo-Ann Sensations Angel Hair in Blue
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Needles:
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US15 (plastic)
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Source:
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Scarves: A Knitter's Dozen, Color Shift
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The Story:
|
This was the first of two scarves I made, though sadly, neither of them was for me. This is the softest yarn EVER and it's fairly inexpensive, which makes me extremely happy. I swear - working with this stuff was like having another pet in the house and I was positively distraught to have to give it away. But I gave it to my mother in law and I hope she loves it as much as I did.
Of course, I did what any self-respecting yarn harlot would do, and bought more of the yarn to make one for myself. But then... well, then I used the yarn I'd bought for myself for my sister. And once again, it was like having another pet in the house. I almost bought more (again) to make yet another scarf, this time for REAL, for me, but then I got distracted by some other project and felt bad about buying more yarn for another scarf that I really didn't need. So no scarf for me. But I do have a small amount of this yarn left that I occasionally look at longingly.
Enough about the yarn. The pattern is so stupidly simple. This was an amazingly quick stitch that really ended up teaching me a lot about how knitting works. I've taught it to others as a way to make a very quick scarf that looks like it took months to make. I will point out that the stitch as quoted in the book is totally WRONG and so a lot of my stopping and starting at the beginning was due to the typos, but once I figured that out, this became one of my new favorite stitches.
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Date Begun:
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12/29/2006
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Date Completed:
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01/15/2007
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Yarn:
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Lion Brand Homespun in Black and White
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Needles:
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US3 DPNs
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Source:
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Knit Socks!, Starter Stockinette
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The Story:
|
The story, here, is pretty simple. Basically, I got tired of scarves and wanted to branch out a bit. So I decided to make some socks. I'd gotten a really nice book of easy sock patterns from The Neighbors and really wanted to use it. I had this yarn laying around from when I first started on this crazy knitting endeavor ages ago, and thought it would make some nice, warm socks that would be completely machine washable. And this is the result.
So really, the only comment I have other than Yay! Socks! is to NEVER, EVER, EVER try to turn a bulky weight sock into a worsted weight by sheer force of will. The yarn will win. I promise you it will. I had hand cramps for weeks after these puppies were done. They were knit on a couple sets of US3 DPNs and those suckers just weren't made for a yarn this bulky. Trust me.
However, I DID learn something positive, which has come in handy again just recently. It's known as "Single Sock Syndrome" and it's what happens when most people knit socks or gloves or anything that comes in a pair. Basically, when knitting a pair of socks, the usual method is to knit one of them all the way to completion and then do the second one. Single Sock Syndrome generally occurs at the completion of the first sock, when you realize you're going to have to start all the way from the beginning and do all that over again. Extreme boredom/fatigue/lack of motivation sets in, resulting in lots of single socks without matches.
I'm familiar with how I work and knew that I would be a prime candidate for the dreaded SSS, and had read something (I don't know who to credit with this gem) that said to avoid getting stuck, don't work all the way through the first one without stopping. Do a little bit of the first one, like the cuff, and then do the same amount on the second one. Then go back to the first and do the heel. Then do the second heel. Then half of the foot on the first.... and so on.
The result is that when you finish the first one, you think, "Oh! I just have a little more to do on the second one before I'm completely done!", avoiding SSS altogether. Works like a charm, lemme tell you. This does mean that you have to have two sets of DPNs in all sizes, but I consider that a small cost when compared with how happy I am when I actually finish a project.
And in case you're wondering, the sock-modeling foot in the very top image belongs to none other than the Hubby, himself, and when it gets cold around here, he loves to put these on over his normal socks to keep his toes toasty. The in-progress shot was modeled by my foot because it's a little smaller than his and could fit inside the DPN triangle when his couldn't.
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Date Begun:
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01/17/2006
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Date Completed:
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01/27/2006
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Yarn:
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Lion Brand Fun Fur in Lime, Bernat Boa in Mocking Bird
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Needles:
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US15 (plastic)
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Source:
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None. Made this one up. :-)
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The Story:
|
Ok, so before you judge my taste and find it severely lacking, let me explain. A friend of mine showed up at work with a scarf done in a similar style - one color in the middle and a border around it. And this was back when I had just resumed my knitting, so I wanted to see if I could do something similar. I honestly can't remember if I really thought this color combination was going to be pretty or if I knew from the beginning that it would be.... well... eye-popping. Anyway, it turned out to be a bit brighter than I expected. One might even call it "garish". But questions of taste aside, I was pretty proud of the work on this one.
At some point in the process, I decided this was a perfect gift for a good friend who is always larger than life and twice as much fun. I know her birthday is in April, so I'm not 100% sure if I waited until her birthday to give it to her, or if I gave it to her right away. Either way, she loved it (or was too nice to tell me it was horrifying) and told me she'd dubbed it the "Janis Joplin Scarf", which is a better name than anything I came up with.
It's solid stockinette stitch all the way - anything more complicated would have been hidden by all the fuzz and fur, anyway. Aaaaand... well, there's not much more to say, except that it was unbelievably soft and felt like a stuffed toy. I kind of thought about making one for myself in colors a bit less blinding. Still might... someday.
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A couple weeks ago, I realized I needed to start documenting my knitting. I've been kicking around the idea for ages, but never really did anything about it. You know how it is - life happens and then it keeps happening until you just have to excuse yourself for a few minutes and take care of things. Anyway, I realized I needed to document my knitting because, well, it's become a big part of my life, taking hours and hours of my time and way more of my money than I care to think about. :-) But mainly, I needed to do this because I get a lot of compliments on my work (awww, shucks) and I can't ever remember what yarns I used, what needles I used, or how long these things took to make.
So I started thinking about how to document this. First, I thought maybe I should get a journal and write things down. After all, I do keep at least one yarn label from every project, so I always know what colors, etc. I used, and that would be best kept in some sort of physical scrapbook or journal. And then I realized that was hardly a workable plan, since I'm terrible about keeping track of journals, let alone writing in them. Then I thought about how I have this blogging thing set up so I can support multiple blogs - maybe one for knitting and one for everything else. But the chances of me actually maintaining two blogs are slim.
And then I realized I already had the perfect place to document my knitting. I have an attentive audience (yay!) and this audience is exactly the people I want to see what I've been working on. There's also the added bonus that I can provide to other knitters the exact thing I've needed so many times as I develop my skills - an honest review of the patterns and yarns I use. I tend to use less expensive materials and I'm almost entirely self-taught, which is not true of the vast majority of knitting bloggers out there. They generally prefer exotic, expensive yarns that I also like, but generally can't justify the cost of.
So I present to you my newest time waster - The Knitwit Papers. I'll be putting up a bunch of these in the next few days (I hope) to cover all the projects I've long since completed, and I hope to file a new installment of The Knitwit Papers with each new project I finish. Let me know what you think - this has been in the works for well over a week and I'm interested in your reaction. Oh! And also - I'm trying something new with the pictures, so if you click on them, they'll show you a bigger version. Click on the picture again to make it go away.
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Date Begun:
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Various
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Date Completed:
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Various
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Yarn:
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(L to R)
Scarf 1: Lion Brand Lion Suede in Sage
Scarf 2: Lion Brand Homespun in Delft and White
Scarf 3: Moda Dea Curious in Ivory
Scarf 4: Lion Brand Homespun in Olive and White
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Needles:
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Scarf 1: US8 Circular (metal)
Scarf 2: US10 Circular (metal)
Scarf 3: US15 (plastic)
Scarf 4: US10 Circular (metal)
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Source:
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Scarf 1: My own design
Scarf 2: Stitch 'n Bitch Nation, Wavy Gravy
Scarf 3: Scarves: A Knitter's Dozen, Doin' The Twist
Scarf 4: Scarves: A Knitter's Dozen, Sliding Garter
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The Story:
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I'm not sure exactly when the knitting bug struck, but it started with a series of scarves. There were others that I don't have pictures of, and some that I've chosen to highlight separately, but this is a pretty good representation of what happened when this all began. So, a really quick rundown of the scarves here:
Scarf 1: I think this is the last knit of the scarves shown. It's actually the second I did in this same style, which is just a simple seed stitch done with an awesome suede yarn. I made one of these with really long fringe for a friend at work last Christmas and Schondy decided he liked it so much he wanted one just like it (without the fringe, of course). This was the scarf that forced me to learn Continental-style knitting as it would have otherwise taken me a hundred years to do this English-style. The result is very soft.
Scarf 2: Of all the scarves I've knit, this is probably my favorite for the way it looks, but my least favorite for the way it wears. I made this a couple years ago, I think, when I was just rediscovering knitting. It was just a simple garter stitch with an excellent introduction to increasing and decreasing (for obvious reasons), and I was so pleased with the way it came out. Unfortunately, it's a bit too bulky since I used two strands of yarn (one white, one blue) held together and it just sits a little too stiffly around the neck. The fringe is a combination of all kinds of things - yarn, ribbon, strings of fake pearls - and that's one of my other favorite things about this one. If I had it to do over again, I would have used either only one of the yarns or larger needles to make it less dense, and I would probably make it a bit longer.
Scarf 3: So if the previous scarf was too short, this is where all that extra length went. This one kind of got away from me because I had two balls of yarn and I wanted to use them both completely up. You can't tell it in the pictures because I looped the extra around the pergola, but trust me - this is the longest scarf ever. I have to loop it around my neck about 4 times just to keep it off the ground. This one was done on big fat needles with a drop stitch, which made it even more loopy, and it's the coolest thing to play with ever. By pulling on the sides, you can stretch it out to probably 2 feet wide. The yarn is what makes it look like it's coming apart - Schondy says it looks like we let Deliah shred it - but it's actually quite sturdy and I wear it often.
Scarf 4: The sliding garter was an experiment. There was a very interesting pattern in the book and it took me about a hundred readings of the pattern to finally understand what it was telling me, but once I understood, I realized this would be a great guy's scarf. That was when I decided Schondy needed a scarf, and since his favorite color was green, well, this is the result. The method for this one was fascinating, using two strands of yarn, but only one of them at a time, so you basically only turn your knitting once every two rows. It's just a simple garter, but up close, it looks very unusual and it's hard to tell why. :-)
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