More Scarves

Scarves are always good carry-along projects, projects to try a new or unusual yarn, and a way to use up some stash yarn. These two recent projects fit the bill.


The turquoise one is Flutter by Miriam Felton, an old favorite. I picked this pattern to try a yarn that was new to me. This Flutter is slightly shorter than previous Flutters, 40 repeats of the center instead of 50, but still successful.

Yarn: Jojoland Ballad, 100 percent wool, 220 yards/50 grams; 2 balls.
Needles: US 3 (3.25mm)
Beads: Toho 6/0 gold-lined rainbow crystal
Finished size: 7.5 inches x 54 inches

This Flutter will end up in my gift box, waiting for just the right recipient.

The green scarf is Mead Scarf by Elizabeth Morrison. Finding a pattern for this marled green and gray yarn required some work: a pattern that would show off the yarn and be interesting to knit. Mead filled the bill.

Yarn: 50 percent merino/50 percent yak from School Products in New York City.
Needles: US 3 (3.25mm)
Finished size: 8 inches x 78 inches

This scarf is for my husband, who selected the color. One of his “rewards” for hanging around yarns stores with me is that he can find yarns that he likes.

Wishing everyone a happy Thanksgiving! And, if you are so inclined, a successful Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, and Cyber Monday.

Another Scarf

I have said this before but I will say it again: I am fortunate that my husband likes to wear things that I knit for him. He has a whole wardrobe of scarves. This latest one is a “souvenir” from our trip to New York City last spring.

We visited a few tourist spots — the New York Public Library main branch is worth a visit, for example — but also some yarn shops, including School Products, which is the mother ship of Karabella yarns, plus all sorts of other interesting things piled in baskets around the shop.

This yarn, for example, was labeled as a merino/yak lace weight tweed. Not something you see every day.

The trick was to find a pattern that would show off the colors and the tweediness. After fooling around with it, I decided on a simple lace pattern that I liked and that he liked.

Some details: size 3.25mm needles; finished size of 9 inches x 68 inches; and weight of 100 grams.

In other news, our house was flamingoed last weekend as part of a Rotary club fundraiser for a scholarship fund for a local high school. As I understand it, someone can pay money to have a flock of 24 flamingos delivered and “planted” for about 48 hours. It was funny, fun, harmless, and done for a good cause. We were kind of sorry to see the flamingos fly away.

Wingspan

Apparently I am still on a color binge. I was not intending to make this but I saw a sample in a yarn store and had to have it.

Details:

• Pattern: Wingspan, a free pattern on Ravelry.
• Yarn: Schoppel Zauberball; 75 percent wool, 25 percent nylon; 100 grams; 420 meters. I used 88 grams for eight wedges. Color: frische Fische.
• Needles: US4

This was fun to knit. Not sure I would knit it again (it did get quite boring) but it was fun once. And I love the colors.

Color Burst

Maybe it was sunny California. A friend was knitting a scarf like this and I immediately added it to my must-do list. Then I saw the yarn on sale. And it made a great travel project during a recent trip to New York City, Washington, D.C., and Richmond, Virginia. Another bonus: It goes with practically everything.

The details:

• Pattern: Wisp from Knitty, without the buttons.
• Yarn: Noro Kureyon Sock Yarn; color S184; 100 grams; 420 meters; 70 percent wool, 30% nylon
• Needles: US6 (4.25mm)
• Finished size: 9 inches x 80 inches

Knit-One-Below Scarf

Earlier this year, my knitting guild, the Puyallup Knitting Guild, held a class on knit-one-below, with a scarf as a class project.

Once I got the hang of it, the knitting was very easy. My scarf is very long because the recipient likes long scarves that he can wear in a slip-knot kind of style.

The details:

• Yarn: One skein each of Cascade 220 in gray (8400) and gray-brown-white tweed (9539).
• Needles: US7 (4.5mm)
• Finished size: 7 inches by 83 inches

I like the way the two yarns make a nice tweed.

Two Bow Ties

Finding a pattern for leftover bits of yarn or one special skein is always a challenge. The Garter Loop-Through Scarf by Marci Richardson from the book Designer One-Skein Wonders is a good option. In both cases, I made the scarf longer and narrower.

One was made with about 160 yards of Gedifra Momentum, a worsted weight poly-cotton blend with a bit of sparkle.

The second was made with one skein (120 yards) of Noro Yuzen, a DK weight, wool-silk-mohair blend.

I think this pattern will enter my repertoire of favorites.

Ice Queen

Holiday greetings to you, regardless of what holiday(s) you celebrate. Perhaps every day you are able to knit is a day to celebrate.

I have been wanting to knit Ice Queen since it was published. It has two of my favorite features: lace and beads. I had one skein of my minty green mohair-silk left so it became Ice Queen. And it has been cold so a warm scarf-wimple was appealing.

Details:

• Pattern: Ice Queen by Rosemary Hill, published on Knitty; version A (stockinette) with bead placement that is a combination of versions A and B and my own misreading of the pattern, which means lots of beads
  
• Yarn: 1 skein Emmebi Silkid, 70 percent kid mohair, 30 percent silk, 220 meters per 25-gram ball, made in Italy but purchased in Riga, Latvia
• Needles: US8 for the body, US for top bind-off
• Beads: 8/0 silver-lined tourmaline seed beads
  

Another Lily of the Valley

Lily of the Valley seems to be a popular motif, from Niebling (see previous post) to Nancy Bush. This is Nancy Bush's Lily of the Valley scarf from Knitted Lace of Estonia. I want to knit everything in this book. Everything. All of it. Even with nupps and even with having to Kitchener the body to the border.

The yarn I used is very, very slippery, which made the nupps more of a challenge, but the I think the yarn and pattern are a good match. The secret to nupps — clearly stated in the book and elsewhere — is to make them very, very loose.

The details:

• Yarn: Naturally Dawn, 50 percent wool, 50 percent silk; 171yards/25 grams; 3 skeins; color Creme
• Needles: 3.25mm
• Finished size: 8 inches wide x 65 inches long

Oooh! Sparkles!

My friend Bridget sends the best, most creative Christmas presents. This year it was a skein of Tilli Tomas Salt & Pepper yarn in a shade called Fitler, which is a square in Philadelphia near Bridget's home. How cool is that? It's spun silk and teeny little beads (hope you can see the beads here).

The pattern is a Turkish Stitch scarf from Loop Knits, knit on US9 needles. Knitting took some care to not split the silk strand and the bead strand (beads are on a separate, very fine thread). The finished sized is about 6 inches wide by 54 inches long.

It's very luxurious to wear. And perfect for Valentine's Day!

Wool in the Desert

Why, you might ask, is Nancy standing in 70-degree sunshine, surrounded by cacti, wearing a wool scarf? Because she is modeling her new scarf.

She purchased the brown-ish yarn (136 yards) from Unique Designs by Kathy; I paired it with two skeins of Jo Sharp DK in a color called Orchard. The result is a brioche stitch scarf with random stripes, 8 inches wide by 64 inches long.

Now she needs some cold weather to provide a proper environment for her scarf.

Mixed Results

The yarn is as soft as butter and the color is rich with the glow of silk. However, as you can see, the color is wildly different in each of the two skeins; one is far greener than the other. I expected some difference — the yarn is advertised as such — but this was a lot of difference. Also, when I washed it, it bled like a stuck pig.

I know I could have alternated the skeins, but I (and the recipient) wanted to maximize the length of the scarf. The recipient is happy with the result. If anyone asks, I will attribute the color difference to "design feature."

• Yarn: Alchemy Synchronicity, 50 percent silk, 50 percent wool, 2 skeins, 118 yards per skein, color name Dragon
  
• Needles: US6 (4mm)
• Finished size: 6 inches by 58 inches

The pattern is an easy one that I learned somewhere but cannot remember where. It is a pattern that works for many types of yarn when nothing else seems to. It is a multiple of 4 plus 2:

Row 1: Knit
Row 2: Knit 2, purl 2, end knit 2

Of course, you can vary the number of knits and purls to suit yourself and your yarn. And you can add slipped edge stitches if you prefer that look (I do).

I Love This Book

The book is "Knitted Lace of Estonia" by Nancy Bush. This pattern is the Raha Scarf. I happened to have a skein of qiviut that decided it needed to be this scarf.

• Yarn: Moco 100 percent musk ox qiviut, 1 ounce, 220 yards; this is the softest yarn I've ever used
  
• Needles: US4
• Finished size: 4.5 inches wide by 62 inches long (although I could probably block it slightly wider and shorter)

This book has so many beautiful patterns that I want to cast on for all of them immediately.

Brioche

As I may have mentioned before, my friend Nancy is not (yet) a knitter, but she is becoming fiber-conscious. On her last visit to Tucson, she brought back several beautiful skeins from Unique Designs by Kathy.

The challenge is to use the short yardage (88 yards, wool-llama blend, in this case) to show off the yarn. I ended up combining it with two skeins (107 yards per skein) of Jo Sharp 8-ply DK wool in a color called Owl.

I cast on 24 stitches and knit the Jo Sharp in brioche stitch for 29 rows. Then I used half of the Kathy wool-llama for 66 rows, followed by a whole lot more brioche in Jo Sharp; then 66 rows of Kathy and 29 rows of Jo Sharp. By weighing the yarn carefully, frequently and in grams, I was able to use up almost every inch.

The final size is about 6.25 inches by 67 inches.

More Leftovers

I would like to work through the odd bits in my stash this year. This was a good start.

• Double Cable Scarf from "One Skein" by Leigh Radford.
• Yarn: Rowan Rowanspun Aran, color Autumn. Another thrift store find. The skein had a lot of knots in it, but I don't think that's why in was in the thrift store because the skein had not been used at all.
  
• Needles: US7 (4.5mm)
• Finished size: 5 inches wide by 58 inches long.

It will probably be a gift for someone.

Lovely Lunna

What better way to transition from summer to winter than with a lace scarf. This one is Lunna, a Jamieson & Smith pattern.

• Yarn: Jamieson & Smith Shetland 2-ply, 2 hanks, 252 yards each.
• Needles: US3
• Size: 12 inches wide by 50 inches long

What made this scarf fun is that part of it has patterning on both sides. The less fun part was grafting 67 stitches. The yarn was a bit stiff and scratchy to work with, but softened up considerably after washing.

The scarf is photographed on my Japanese lace leaf maple — a lace scarf on a lace maple. In the summer, the leaves of the tree are dark red. In the fall, the leaves "catch fire" in a stunning flame color.

A Turquoise Angel

Sivia Harding's Angel Pearls beaded scarf, made with leftovers from Sivia Harding's Shetland Garden shawl (see September 17 and September 19 entries). My only difficulty with the pattern is that the purl and bead symbols on the charts look exactly the same. Fortunately the written instructions allowed me to mark where to place the beads — hooray for designers who provide both written instructions and charts.

• Yarn: Nature Spun fingering weight, approximately 1 skein
• Color: Hurricane Seas
• Needles: US5
• Beads: Silverline 6/0 Black Diamond (turquoise is darned hard to match, so I opted for contrast)
• Pattern repeats: 13 repeats of the middle section
• Size: Don't know; I gave it to my friend Liz before I measured it
  

Alaska Rainforest

Last October, I attended a class where we explored fagoting stitches and experimented with many cool things one can do with fagoting. Then in June, while traveling in Alaska, I purchased this lovely hand-dyed yarn from Rabbit Ridge Designs in a coloway called Rainforest.

The fagoting lessons came to mind while I was considering how to best show the lovely Alaska rain forest colors. Simple design, beautiful colors — it all worked (in my opinion).

The specifics:

• Yarn: Rabbit Ridge Designs DK optim wool, two 50-gram skeins, 154 yards per skein
• Needles: US 8
• Finished size: 7.5 inches wide by 92 inches long