Saturday, February 13, 2010

Scarf of many patterns

This is a work in progress but I'm just playing around to see if my Ravelry notes come over cleanly with cut and paste or whether I'll get a vast wasteland of broken links.


Oooo....lookie, it's been so long since I've used blogger -- is it possible you can actually put the pictures anywhere within the post and not just at the top?

Note to non-Ravelers, if you do not have a free account with Ravelry, a few of these links will not work for you because they are to project pages in Ravelry. If you don't have a Ravelry account and you don't knit or crochet, then you needn't worry about it. If you aren't on Ravelry and you do knit and or crochet, then you should get an account. If you click a broken link, my guess is it will take you to a page where you can request an account. Or google Ravelry, or click the button on the upper right of this blog (not the post, the blog).





CO 24 per pattern
here’s a video of how to do the pattern
http://www.diynetwork.com/videos/crossover-scarf/4088.html
1/30 Used straight needles even though I use circs for everything. It was difficult for me cross over the dropped stitches on the circulars - everything felt too floppy. Also, I have found dropped stitches difficult on circs – on the next row, all the drops cross and can be difficult to slide up off the cable and onto the needle. It’s a pain to constantly stop and try to work them up onto the needle.
Modified the pattern. Following it through Row 10. I follow Row 11 as directed by the pattern except that I only wrap it 3 times to keep the length about the same with the crisscross rows (figuring the crossing eats up about one wrap). Row 12, I just drop and knit the stitches, I don’t criss-cross them.
For the next pattern repeat, I modify row 6 by slipping the 8 stitches back to the left needle and inserting the right needle into the 4 furthest stitches and cross them over. The result is that every other criss-cross row has the outside stitches slanting in opposite directions (see picture – the bottom row slants from left to right and the upper row slants right to left).
Of course, if I had it to do over, I’d alternate the criss cross rows as per pattern, which would give me a “2 diamond” criss cross row, a straight drop stitch row, then a “3 diamond” criss cross row, then straight, then 2, then 3 and so on. This project shows clearly how the criss-cross rows alternate.
I may do this when I get to the other end of the scarf, symmetry be damned.
1/31 I don’t know if I have the patience for a scarf. I like how this looks, but I’m toying with the idea of switching patterns every so often – it might be a great way to try out some new patterns while incorporating them into a scarf.
2/1 okay, I’ve calmed down and decided to focus. I like the drop stitch pattern I’ve got going for the ends. I like to be able to wear my scarf up over my head to cover my ears. This stitch pattern is too holey for that, so I’ll switch to another pattern for the middle section of the scarf and then return to my drop stitching.
After much pattern research, I’m going with the Prismatic Scarf, but I think I’ll use TexturedKnitter’s modificationfor it.
2/7 decided it’s time to switch to the Prismatic pattern. Increased to 30 sts because this is narrower than the drop stitch pattern and I want this to cover my ears.
2/9 bored. Decided to modify prismatic scarf by doing pattern rows 1 through 12 and then reverse back down to 1. This pattern narrows the scarf considerably. Adding the 6 stitches makes the scarf the same width of the first pattern.
Based on the prismatic projects, I have to say that reversing the pattern isn’t as pretty as doing it as written, but I think it works with the criss-crossy, zig-zaggy nature of this scarf.
Due to concerns about running out of yarn and boredom, I’ve decided to switch to garter (because garter is such a scintillating stitch!). Seriously, this will widen the scarf and I’ll knit it long enough to go over my head and ears then I’ll return to the prismatic scarf pattern, doing rows 1 to 12 then reverse back down to 1 and then go back to my drop stitch pattern.
2/13 did a whole bunch of rows in garter. Got the book 101 Designer One-Skein Wonders so I could look at thecross-stitch scarf. Decided to rip back most of the garter and give cross-stitch a try. Pattern is very difficult to understand and after some internet and ravelry searching, I decided to use the directions for the 2 st-left cross found here for free and for the second row, follow the pattern. This pattern was nearly impossible for me until I switched to a smaller left needle on my interchangeables (one of the things I love about interchangeables).

To be continued, because it's a freakin' scarf and it goes on forever and ever the same as it ever was, unless you go all add and keep switching patterns.

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