Wednesday, June 13, 2012

a do-over for another reason


I was recently knitting for another dear friend whose birthday it was recently. She however had indicated that she'd be more interested in a shawl/scarf type ensemble rather than socks. No problem.

I have really been wanting to knit some of Martina Behm's Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy one skein shawls. I love both Magrathea and Lintilla. You can view both here

I used this supposedly 4ply 200g yarn that I'd bought at a certain guild day yarn type thing. I personally do not think it's 4 ply, it certainly wasn't 200g and the yardage wasn't great. Anyway I got 75% through Magrathea and had used too much of my yarn. Most 4 ply skeins are between 100 and 150g so I thought with my 200g I would have plenty. Because the yarn wasn't properly labelled I had no idea what the yardage was so was just going by weight. Bad idea. Anyway for the weight of the yarn I would have had to keep going beyond the minimum repeats and I wasn't even going to get that far. So 6 days before her birthday I completely frogged the project.



Fortunately one of my richmond knitter compatriots inadvertently came to the rescue. I had admired this scarf IRL recently and saw from her project page that she'd made it using a dk yarn (much as I suspect this yarn is).

So early that Friday morning after frogging my previous attempt I downloaded the pattern Scroll Lace Scarf by Ysolda Teague. You can check out her amazing stuff at ysolda.com. After looking at the issues regarding the stockinette sections rolling too much I brazenly adopted all my compatriot's modifications and did the crescent in garter stitch - and thus echoing the magrathea as well...

It was fascinating coming up with something that visually had quite a few similarities but with such different construction. With the scroll lace scarf you knit all the lace to begin with, pick up stitches along the edge and then using short rows you create the crescent shape. As you can see above with the magrathea you knit the lace concurrently with the garter stitch section and then recreate the other lace side along the final edge when the scarf is deep enough.


Anyway I was thrilled with the final result and loved how the lace came out.

It did need a bit of blocking. And this was my first real inexpert attempt. (I have since acquired some blocking wires so expect it might get easier). Anyway, I used a cheap yoga mat overlaid with gingham which was had one inch squares - made measurements easier. And then used whatever pins I could get hold of. It worked out all right.


And amazingly I managed to get it in the post and it arrived on the day. Win.

2 comments:

  1. Great job on the scarf! You certainly are a fan of do-overs :)

    Your use of gingham fabric for measuring is ingenius!

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  2. Thanks Sonia!

    And of course I got the gingham idea from a ravelry discussion :-) You do need to be careful but some of the gingham at spotlight is a true 1 inch square (bring your tape measure to be sure...) It didn't matter so much for this scarf but for garments I think it will be invaluable.

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