Posts from — March 2009

by Myrna Stahman, from Stahman’s Shawls & Scarves.

Ravelry Project link
Yarn: Cascade 220 (1.5 skein)
Gauge: 4.5 st/in
Needles: Size 6 Addi Turbos
Length: 62 in
Width: 8.5 in

Husband:  6’4″ tall…long torso.

So, this was really a VERY enjoyable project.  The pattern is one that once you see how it’s made, you dont need to consult the chart again.  It made a very comfortable and enjoyable TV-viewing project.

These scarf patterns are really neat.  They begin with a provisional cast-on and then you knit it to the length you want and finish one side.  Then, you pick up the stitches from the provisional cast-on – knit the neck for the length you need it, and then knit the next side the same length as you made the first side.  Very slick.

So, since they’re kind of modular, you can adjust where you need the length and come up with a custom fit scarf.  You can see the neck part in the post below where I’d run out of yarn.

The skein of yarn that I got to finish it with – is very close in color – and with all the texture in the scarf, any difference in color just kind of looks like a shadow cast.

So, I’ll likely just leave it this color.  The dyepot continues to collect dust.

I finished the thumb on the left mitten last evening. It taught me a couple of things – one was that the pattern for the palm isn’t just staggered to make it work for the palm – but if you don’t stagger the beginning white stitches the same for the thumb you get an interesting striping effect (the pictures above click to a bigger size). The thumb chart in the book is for the “public” side of the thumb, and the instructions say to just continue the same pattern as for the palm for the inside of the thumb. Apparently that meant even the edges? Why do I question these things?

So, knitting lesson number “bazillion” learned (hopefully).

I also messed up on the top pattern on the mitten (which I guess this picture does not really illustrate all that well – but it’s kind of a salt and pepper version of the bottom three patterns). I think I was talking to someone while knitting and miscounted somewhere.

I actually kind of like it – but I’m not hopeful I’ll be able to repeat it on the right hand.

These knit up to the size stated on the pattern – a lady’s small – my hands are probably a men’s medium or a lady’s large, so these are for gifting purposes, and pretty much just the fun of making them.  They are fascinating and fun.  This mitten took me six evenings from start to finish, and I don’t knit all evening with tiny needles, just maybe for an hour or two at most.

The “thumb trick” worked great. I’ll be using that one again. You DO have this book, right?  Thumb trick “Unvented” here.

I have been wanting to get to these patterns inTerri Shea’s book,  SELBUVOTTER: Biography of a Knitting Traditionfor the longest time it seems.  It’s actually hard to choose one, especially since she tells you how to mix and match and adapt the patterns to different yarns – then I have WAY too many possibilities.  That situation usually ends up with me just (figuratively) spinning.

So, I did that for a while and then decided when I got yarn for it I’d just choose one that’s already in the book and do it.  This is called “NHM#3″.    It looks like rose buds and leaves to me.  Now I’m kind of wishing I’d gotten a color (like a rosy color for the design) rather than just stick with the neutrals, but there’s always next time.

Here’s the palm (click to make picture bigger):

You can see the waste yarn at the thumb opening here. It seems like it’s going to work well.  The book tells you to put these stitches onto a piece of waste yarn and then cast on the same amount and knit those.  That often ends up kind of sloppy for me, so I chose to just knit onto the waste yarn twice.

I have to wait until I’m done with the mitten to come back and pick up those stitches and take the yarn out – so the suspense continues!

This is day 3′s progress.  I only have time to knit at night during the week, so not too bad.  It’s not like anyone NEEDS these anytime soon, what with Spring springing up all around here, so there’s no great hurry, and I’m enjoying the process.

In other news – my other skein yarn for the Seaman’s scarf has arrived at my LYS.  So, I’m seeing a weekend jaunt to Sonora coming up soon, and the other half of the Seaman’s scarf.  Hopefully, the dyelots will be close enough that I won’t need to resort to my own devices to make it come out “matching.”

I have a dyepot, and I know how to use it…just sayin’.

Well, almost.  I sort of ran out of yarn about halfway through the project.  I hate when that happens.  This one is called “Irling’s Half Diamond Seaman’s scarf,” and it is in Stahman’s Shawls and Scarves.  I’m making it from Cascade 220 – only one side will be from a different dye lot because I bought this yarn about a year ago and just now got around to using it…AND apparently it takes more than one skein to do a scarf.  I bought it to make felted clogs with – and it was the color that I only needed one skein for – however, I have since used the other yarn on other projects, so decided to use THIS color for a nice neutral kind of “latte” colored scarf.  So, anyway, it gave us an excuse to take a drive over to Sonora to my LYS to see if they had any left.  Of course not!  But, they ordered some for me, so now I get to go BACK again.  See how that works?

While we were there this trip, I picked up some fingering weight yarn to start some selbuvotter mittens with.  These will be for a child, so it’s a good thing I ended up buying an acrylic.  I’m actualy pretty impressed with acrylic these days – although it still feels kind of “crunchy” to me, and I much prefer knitting with wool.  But, most of the time when you give young moms things that will shrink – they end up shrunk – so acrylic has its place.

They’re carrying Dream In Color yarn now, along with some alpaca yarn that I swear I’d marry if I could, but we have to keep things on the cheap these days since we also like to eat – so I restrained myself.

This should keep me busy for a while.

Oh!  And, the cat ladies were at Starbucks this weekend, so I got to drop off the mice.  They were most appreciative, and I was really glad I caught them.

These are definitely a quick knit.  Just one episode of Nero Wolfe and you have a mitt – well, I do. I had to take the second one out – yeah, I know, I probably should have taken the top part of the first one out with that ugly “picot” – but it stretches out and doesn’t show – because I accidentally made it a row too short – and that was just not acceptable.  THAT turned in to a “hair do” – but after a while, I was able to finally get down to a spot that made sense and reknit the thing.  Really.  It was a mass of yarn.  I had already woven in the ends – and I couldn’t find them so I snipped and started pulling and ended up with a giant tangle of yarn and no end.  It was ridiculous!  Anyway, all finished and they fit fine and are quite warm.  I almost wish I’d made mittens out of them.

• Fetching at Knitty.com