Thursday, February 14, 2013

Knitting Waves


A novice knitter, I experience waves of enthusiasm toward the craft in which I immerse myself utterly.  Then, at some point, I get frustrated and go rushing back to crochet.  At the moment, I'm playing in the waves again.  I would love to be as comfortable knitting as I am crocheting, so to keep myself inspired, I've been on the lookout for fun little projects.

I happen to be on Facebook last night when a page I follow posted Spinning Daily's Free eBook offer. The book includes five free scarf patterns, so I thought, why not?  Among the designs was a wavy scarf pattern.  I've seen similar ones and have always liked the look.  Plus, I have this chunky thick and thin yarn that I spun and I've been wanting a pattern that would show it off.  Inspired, I grabbed my size 9 needles and set to work.


I probably shouldn't admit this, but I struggled with the yarn overs at first.  Basically, I was trying to wrap the wrong needle.  After scratching my noggin' for a few minutes, I realized my error.  After that, it was easy to yarn over along one row and drop the stitches on the next.  Actually, it was more than easy, it was fun.  I have to say, this little scarf is the most fun I've had knitting so far.  The pattern was easy and the resulting waves and bubbles so satisfying, that I was a happy little knitter last night.  I woke up anxious to finish off my skein this morning.  I had just enough yarn to make a short infinity scarf.

I spun the yarn out of a wool/silk blend.  It feels so cozy, that I started to fantasized about making an entire afghan.  That would be a lot of spinning!  For now, I'm going to focus on giving my scarf a little color.  I have it soaking at this very moment.  Instead of just one color, I thought it could be fun to dye stripes that run the length of the piece.  I'm thinking 3 colors with the outer stripes being wider than the center.  Committing to colors is hard.  Right now I have teal, chartreuse and pewter on the brain.  I like the idea of a thin band of chartreuse separating the darker colors.   


Can you picture it?  The top half would be teal, the bottom pewter with just a thin line of chartreuse.  What?  How can you be silent at a time like this?  Color choice is critical you know!  Okay, this is me, walking away to dye my scarf... I'm going now... really I am...

4 comments:

Andrea G said...

I feel about crochet the way you feel about knitting. I've take a couple classes and made a couple small items, but I'm not quite comfortable. Knitting is my fall back when I want to get something done. I need to find a must-do project that is best done in crochet.

Jenn said...

Solidarity! ~ Well I don't know about "must do", but I do have a quick and easy crochet pattern.

http://windrosefiberstudio.blogspot.com/2010/01/scarf-for-automobile-bonnet-free.html

I designed it for my crochet students. If you can chain and single crochet, that's all you need. I think a quick moving project where you can see immediate results helps. This one is definitely that way and it's a fun one to do with textured or variegated yarns.

Vanessa Yvonne said...

I really dig how the wavy pattern shows off the texture in your yarn. Knitting has always been my go-to for handspun yarn, and my fall-back is crochet. Although lately, both techniques make the stitches feel claustrophobic so I started weaving on a tri-loom and making my own primitive looms out of cardboard. It's so gratifying!

Jenn said...

I love simple frame looms. That's kind of how I got my start in fibers. I started weaving and then I needed interesting yarn so I started spinning and dyeing. To this day, when I see a pretty yarn, I first think of how it would look woven into a fabric.