l'echarpe decembre
The Knitty Deep Fall 2010 went live this morning -- check out my new pattern, l'echarpe decembre!!!
This scarf is knit in Blue Sky Alpaca Worsted Hand-dye on size US 8 needles. The main color is Petunia, and the contrast color is Charcoal.
At first glance it looks like a simple fair isle scarf. . . but when you look more closely, you notice that it's reversible, and that it has a different fair isle motif on each side. I came up with the design while I was living in France and decided I wanted to teach myself double knitting, without the benefit of a teacher, an instructional book, or even the internet - in short, without anything but a general idea that double knitting was possible and a firm conviction that I could learn it.
While I didn't manage to figure out double knitting, I did end up with a reversible and very warm scarf. Instead of two layers of stockinette, like you would get by double knitting, this scarf is one layer made extra-thick by knitting it in 1x1 rib. When you knit 1x1 rib on needles that are slightly small for the yarn you're using, and you don't stretch it out when you block it or when you wear it, you get a thick fabric that creates the illusion of stockinette.
Once I figured out that I could mimic stockinette by knitting in 1x1 rib, I realized I would be bored to tears if I tried to knit a scarf in just 1x1 rib. So I added one of my favorite fair isle stars to the end of it. And because that wasn't enough of a challenge, I decided I might as well take it a step further and knit a different fair isle star on each side of the fabric.
What that meant was that I continued to knit in 1x1 rib, on right sides using the first chart for the knit stitches and the second chart for the purled stitches, and on wrong sides using the second chart for knit stitches and the first chart for purled stitches. In order to simplify things for the pattern available on Knitty, I condensed the two charts to one. The downside is that the fair isle patterns don't immediately make sense when you look at the chart; the upside is that you don't have to keep your place in two charts, and besides, you can see the fair isle motifs developing quite quickly as you progress a few rows.
I hope you like it! Feel free to shoot a message if you have questions or if you run into any issues knitting it. I'm always around on Ravelry, and my name there is themegnapkin. Happy knitting!
This scarf is knit in Blue Sky Alpaca Worsted Hand-dye on size US 8 needles. The main color is Petunia, and the contrast color is Charcoal.
At first glance it looks like a simple fair isle scarf. . . but when you look more closely, you notice that it's reversible, and that it has a different fair isle motif on each side. I came up with the design while I was living in France and decided I wanted to teach myself double knitting, without the benefit of a teacher, an instructional book, or even the internet - in short, without anything but a general idea that double knitting was possible and a firm conviction that I could learn it.
While I didn't manage to figure out double knitting, I did end up with a reversible and very warm scarf. Instead of two layers of stockinette, like you would get by double knitting, this scarf is one layer made extra-thick by knitting it in 1x1 rib. When you knit 1x1 rib on needles that are slightly small for the yarn you're using, and you don't stretch it out when you block it or when you wear it, you get a thick fabric that creates the illusion of stockinette.
Once I figured out that I could mimic stockinette by knitting in 1x1 rib, I realized I would be bored to tears if I tried to knit a scarf in just 1x1 rib. So I added one of my favorite fair isle stars to the end of it. And because that wasn't enough of a challenge, I decided I might as well take it a step further and knit a different fair isle star on each side of the fabric.
What that meant was that I continued to knit in 1x1 rib, on right sides using the first chart for the knit stitches and the second chart for the purled stitches, and on wrong sides using the second chart for knit stitches and the first chart for purled stitches. In order to simplify things for the pattern available on Knitty, I condensed the two charts to one. The downside is that the fair isle patterns don't immediately make sense when you look at the chart; the upside is that you don't have to keep your place in two charts, and besides, you can see the fair isle motifs developing quite quickly as you progress a few rows.
I hope you like it! Feel free to shoot a message if you have questions or if you run into any issues knitting it. I'm always around on Ravelry, and my name there is themegnapkin. Happy knitting!
Comments