Build A Scarf, Gauge Free

Now it's time to think. I have a few days to go up to my cabin and do just that. My "think" is going to be on how to make hats with triangles and without any regard to gauge.

This is my summer project. I want to develop a series of Gauge Free patterns. Imagine, no gauge to worry about!

Most people have trouble with getting gauge. It's a reason why blankets, shawls and other garments that don't need to fit are so popular. Getting gauge can be very difficult. So let's forget about it altogether. But what would that entail?

I have one pattern so far for a scarf. Build A Scarf with Knitacation, a new design company I'm part of. You begin with any yarn (about 200g) and any needle.

 Knit the first triangle until the depth of the triangle is the width you would like your scarf to be.

Then turn and begin a second triangle, attaching as you go.

It's fun to see it come together.

Then make a second scarf because now you're on a roll. This one is a little wider and with heavier wool.

I can think of a lot more possibilities: a couple of striped triangles, blocks of colour within the triangles, change yarn weights with some triangles for different sizing. Go for it.
Deb

Just made it

I made it. I knit really fast to outrun the end of the ball of wool and I cheated a little bit by worked some extra decreases so I wouldn't run out.

 That's actually not a bad margin but it was getting pretty scary by the end.

This is a really cozy scarf that you can knit with any yarn in your stash or splurge and buy something special to wrap around your neck through this snowy winter. You get to decide the depth of the scarf. This one is 8"/20cm deep worked in DK wool.

This one is 5.5"/14cm deep in fingering weight wool. The first triangle determines how deep the scarf will be and it's totally your choice.

The pattern is not quite ready yet but it will be soon and it will be a Freebie with my Newsletter, as my Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays gift. If you want to sign up to get it go here and subscribe to Cabin Fever Newsletter .

Maybe you'll want to make a nice scarf for yourself with all your odd balls after the big day.
-Deb

Yarn Chicken

Sometimes the end of a project creeps up on me without even knowing it. I am knitting a scarf with triangles and reached this variegated triangle and realized I had only this much wool left. Yikes, that was close.

Now I am trying to finish one last triangle, the royal blue triangle beside it, knitting as fast as I can to outrun the end of the wool.

I have this much wool left ...

to work 5 more rows and then cast off. I don't know. It's not looking good.
-Deb

The disappearing week

I missed blogging last week. I don't even know where the week went. But I have been doing lots of knitting and got a few things done.

More Stash Buster Socks finished. Yay. Add them to the Christmas pile.

I worked on my class for the Yarn Over Sleep Over Retreat in April. Seems like it's so far away but it will be here before we know it. One of my classes is Shaping Lace so I made up a scarf where you have to decrease away on the sides of the lace pattern and then increase. This gives practise for when you need to shape armholes and necklines in a lace pattern. This is what we'll get started on and then the knitters can continue to work the scarf (or not). Maybe I could call it Waving Leaves. Do you have a better name?

I'm also working on a scarf with triangles. They are my obsession at the moment. This scarf starts at one end and works to the other, attaching each new triangle to the next. The triangles get bigger and bigger to the centre and then get smaller. I was trying for an exact depth in the centre. It took a couple of tries. It turns out that that's quite a bit of knitting on a 3.5mm/US3 needle. But I really enjoyed it. And might just start another one.
I tried knitting a new scarf off the old scarf. Not a good idea. The garter stitch really puts permanent kinks in the wool that knit up unevenly. I know this, I was just so excited to keep going. I ended up ripping back the old scarf, dumping it in water and waiting impatiently for it to dry. Hovering over the wool and checking every 5 minutes does not quicken the process. Now there is much less wiggle in the strands.

I guess that answers the question of where my week went.
Deb

Retreating is over

It's been a frantic couple of weeks. Two retreats back to back. Loads of fun with knitters.

The Yarn Over Sleep Over weekend was great. I taught a mosaic class, always interesting because the charts don't read like any other charts but always give a wonderful result.

I especially like it in fingering weight yarn, much more delicate looking.

Knitting a Lake Lauzon was full of triangles and rectangles and look at that finished scarf!

Looking forward to next year but now ... back to our regualarly scheduled program where I am doing my taxes. Argh.
-Deb

Triangles and Parallelograms

I lost about a day and a half trying to solve a problem. I’m making a “join as you go” scarf. I thought it would be easy in garter stitch since 4 stitches and 4 Ridges equal 1”. How hard could it be to form triangles and parallelograms? I’ve worked other designers' patterns in this way. Now to design my own.

It started out fine. I was trying to make a crescent scarf that is shaped like a staple. A short leg hanging down on either side with a long straight centre section. These are easy to wrap around your neck and you can tie the ends together which I sometimes like to do. 

Then it got a bit squiffy.

The waving is the product of putting right angled triangles, with equilateral triangles, with parallelograms. Whew. I spent the day catching up on the ratios of Pythagoras Theorem. Remember that from high school? Who knew I would need it in knitting. Interesting stuff. 

New scarf. I have it figured out.

We’re going to tackle this at the Knit At Lake Lauzon Retreat, April 23 & 24 in Algoma Mills (half way between Sudbury and Sault Saint Marie, ON). It will be easy. I promise. And of course you can always ignore all the mumbo-jumbo of math theory and just get on with the knitting.

If you live in Northern Ontario or can get there, please join us for 2 days of knitting. I know, an irresistible offer, knitting and Pythagoras Theorem! Ha, ha.

-Deb

Windward scarf

I just finished knitting the Windward scarf, just because the schematic looked interesting. It was. The concept for this scarf is terrific. The final scarf has lots of triangles and one parallelogram in it with no pick up & knits involved.
Phew, it's also a lot of knitting on a 3.25mm needle. I used mini maiden in beautiful blues and greens.

This is the first couple of sections, beginning at the tip of the garter stitch section. Fairly straight forward with decreases worked to make the garter stitch triangle and increases to make the next stocking stitch triangle.

The middle of the scarf is the really interesting part. You work 5 sections at the same time, working increases and decreases at the borders of each of the triangle sections and there is one parallelogram on the right there, to make the shapes you can see.

The arrow indicates the stitches on the needle that you knit on each row. Interesting, eh? Have you knit anything with interesting construction lately? I'm always interested in something new.

 

Lovely to be knitting outside on the porch again.
-Deb

Fingering to Chunky weight Scarf

After finishing the Chevron Mesh Scarf (last post) I had wool left over so decided to put my knitting needles where my mouth is (not literally) and knit a scarf design in chunky weight wool. I mentioned in the Cabin Fever Newsletter that I was fascinated by these garments, chunky weight neck shawls.
So now I've made one.

I found knitting lace in chunky weight wool very, very rewarding. It's fast and big and the stitch patterns are impressive when so large. I would have made it one row of motifs bigger but ran out of wool (I was using up the end of the ball). It was a really interesting experiment to take a fingering weight scarf and knit it in chunky weight wool.

I used  Mary's Scarf/Shawl by Mary K. Hobbs, done originally in fingering weight wool. This pattern lends itself to this experiment because it begins at the bottom point. You can stop knitting it at any point for the finished size you want, perfect.

 

And now here it is in chunky weight Ecological Wool by Cascade on 9mm/U.S.13 needle.

The motifs in the pattern are amazing.

 

This is lace knitting with patterning on both sides. There are those tricky little devils "purl through the back loop" stitches which I must say are much easier to work in chunky weight wool. I think it could also be great in DK or worsted weight on big needles, very wearable indeed as a neck scarf or shawl.

Need a quick and very interesting knit? Have you made any of these chunky neck scarves? What did you think of them.
-Deb

Chevron Mesh Scarf

I finished the Chevron Mesh scarf (from KnitWear magazine, spring 2014 - see last post). I really enjoyed knitting this. I admit it's much more stunning in two colours but I still like it in one.

  

The chevron shows but is subtle.
This is worked in garter stitch. Each row begins with "Slip 1 stitch purlwise with yarn in front". This gives a lovely edge to pick up from. The first time I picked up & knit into the entire slipped stitch.

Not happy with that. So from then on I picked up & knit into one of the legs of each slipped stitch. The one I chose was the leg on the far side. This gives me a ridge that looks similar to a garter stitch ridge. Much happier with that.

A lovely knit that only another knitter might appreciate.
- Deb

The new Crescent Spokes scarf is up on Patternfish. I knit it in Saucon Fingering, my current favourite yarn. It's a cotton/acrylic fingering (sock) weight yarn and makes a really great scarf. I think I'm a convert to scarf wearing now. I had a great time figuring out how many ways this scarf could be worn.

 

Deb

Here's my first attempt at a video. It's for the Cast On I used for the latest crescent scarf where the Cast On needs to be really loose so that the points can be blocked nicely. The beauty of this method is that you don't have to go up several needle sizes to get a loose Cast On. You can use the needle you're going to use to knit the scarf or shawl.

Here are the written instructions.

VERY LOOSE Cast On:

It is so loose that you can use the smaller circular needle to cast on.

 

This is a Cable Cast On with an extra knit stitch worked between each cast on stitch and is worked as follows:

Make a slip knot and place on Left needle. - 1 stitch on needle.

Insert Right needle into slip knot, wrap yarn around needle and pull through, place resulting loop onto Left needle. - 1 stitch cast on, you now have 2 stitches on needle.

*Insert Right needle between 2 stitches, wrap yarn around needle and pull through, place resulting loop on Left needle, knit this stitch and slip off needle, replace knit stitch onto Left needle. - 1 more stitch cast on; repeat from * until number of desired stitches cast on.

It allowed me to block the points nice and long, even when using a cotton/acrylic blend. It's really, really stretchy with fingering weight wool.

If you try it let me know what you think.
Deb

Ta, da. A new crescent scarf, third time lucky. It's in Saucon Fingering, a cotton/acrylic blend which I really like. The pattern is written and I'm getting it testknit in Fountain Hill, a mohair/acrylic blend for two different looks. Hopefully that will be done next week. Maybe I will become a scarf person after all.
Deb

It's blocking day. This scarf didn't take long to knit at all, except for the cast on and cast off, ha, ha. And they do take a bit of time but taking a couple of breaks helps. It's much narrower than my first one. Blocks out to 7" deep at the top of the circle.

I worked it in Saucon Fingering which is a cotton/acrylic blend.

Knits up really nicely on a 4.5mm/U.S.7 needle. It's drying right now and will be ready to come off the pins later today.

Are there shawl people and scarf people? I must admit, to date, I am not a scarf person. But I do wear shawls. I love to knit scarves and I have several but never think to put them on. I also don't wear jewelry. Is there a connection between jewelry wearing and scarf wearing?

Here's my Judy wearing the crescent scarf.

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What do you think? I'm thinking it's still a little too wide for a scarf, especially at the shoulder when it's flung over. Also went a little overboard on the length. Wanted to add 3 more points for length and realized that 3 wasn't going to work so went to 4 extra points and could have done with only 2 extra points. Am I getting closer?
Deb

 

Casting Off a large crescent scarf.

I had to take a break part way through. It's a lot of stitches but seems to go faster than the equivalent length of a regular scarf knit from the short edge up. A crescent scarf is cast on on the long edge of a scarf so many more stitches to cast on and cast off.

On this version I cast on more stitches for 4 more points and cut the short rows in half so it's not as deep. It's much longer on the inside edge.

I've pinned it, steamed it and then sprayed it with water. Now I'm going to let it dry. On the weekend I'm going to compare the three I've done and figure out where to go from here. Some mashing of the three I suspect.
Deb

A shocking lack of blogging going on here. But I have been knitting, just not doing much in the way of photography. I'm working on a crescent shawl. I did the red one in Saucon Fingering cotton/acrylic and found it too short, more like a collar. But I have to say it steam blocked beautifully.


So I did another one larger in all directions, in Fountain Hill, a mohair/acrylic. It's feels gorgeous, light as a feather.


But I'm finding that everyone I show it to wants to throw part of it over their shoulder.

This one is still a bit too short to stay in place comfortably and rather deep, don't you think? So I'm working on number 3. I'm making it more of a crescent scarf than a shawl, half the depth of lace and longer short rows for less depth. So far I'm liking it but it doesn't look like much yet. Hoping to do some more work on it tomorrow. Stay tuned, I will need some feedback.
Deb

It's beginning, the new book. This year's project will be Accessories. I'm starting with a crescent shawl just because they have such an intriguing construction. This one is done with Saucon Fingering, a cotton/acrylic blend. I'm just blocking it out now.

Can't wait to see if it has worked out.
Deb

It looks like I came home from Ottawa and then disappeared off the face of the blog. I did but I was teaching in Midhurst last weekend so it's been a busy teaching couple of weeks.

Last weekend I taught a beginner lace class over 2 days for the Simco County Arts and Crafts Assoc..

They made this crescent scarf in DK weight yarn. It was a quiet class with much counting of stitches under the breath. But they all did very, very well.

You begin this scarf with the lace work. That entails many, many stitch markers, one for every repeat of the pattern. This Oatmeal one is in Cotton Tweed.

And then I knit this bright one in fingering (sock) weight yarn but it's a little short.

So the blue one I'm working on now has 4 more repeats of the pattern on it.

I'm still enjoying knitting scarf no.4.

-Deb