Monday, January 23, 2017

Hitchhiker with Stripes & Beads!


Yarn del Sol, my local shop, hosted a knit-along for a beaded version of the Hitchhiker scarf. It's an asymmetrical triangular shawl with 42 points on one edge. A very easy knit. The knit-along included instruction on how to add beads at each point.

I purchased a skein variegated light teals (yarn on the right) from In The Deep Hue Sea at YDS.

These were my beads of choice.

Then I started and stopped for many months knitting very slowly.

I eventually got to about the 30th point and realized that I was going to run out of yarn to make all 42 points. I could have stopped anytime but for some crazy reason was determined to make all 42 points! So I dug into my stash and found the lovely variegated dark teal yarn (left in first photo at top) I had leftover from another project. It's Ranco from Arucania Yarns. It was almost the same grist and the color was a great match.

I had created this little chart to count my rows. You'd think I could remember an 8 row repeat in garter stitch with increases on only one side. But I could never figure out which side I was on whenever I stopped. The chart was my memory. I also used it to work out stripes using a very short Fibonacci (D/L=Dark/Light yarn) sequence.

And the finished result. I think it turned out just great.





Tuesday, January 10, 2017

Weekend Scarf

I always see these articles proclaiming that one can weave a scarf in a weekend. That has never been my experience until now.

Yarn...Bamboo Pop. 50/50 Bamboo/Cotton purchased at Yarn del Sol.

Starting Friday night - one hour to warp and dress my 10" Schacht Cricket rigid heddle loom. Using direct warping method*, 8 dent reed, 64 ends, 3 yards long (2.7m). Start weaving.

Variegated warp with a solid weft. I wove about 10-12 inches per half hour.

Close up of loose weave. That's one reason why the weaving goes so fast.

4 hours total to weave 75 inches (190cm). Most on Saturday with the last 5 inches woven on Sunday morning. Cut off loom.

Twist fringe right away in just one hour. I love my fringe twister.

For easy care, throw in washer and dryer (to get full shrinkage of the bamboo/cotton yarn - about 14% shrinkage), press well with a hot iron and lots of steam. I wore it Monday morning!

You can weave a scarf in a weekend!

*Direct warping method. In 3 minutes. Or real time.