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:
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.
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.
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!
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.
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