Wednesday, March 24, 2010

The Major Project



Actually this project wasn't THAT major, I was just on a major time crunch to get it finished. I made a destroyed cowl, which I found via Already Pretty, pattern HERE. It's just a continuous circular scarf with no beginning or end. I love how this turned out. This one is a birthday present for a friend (ANOTHER Heather- if you can believe it) but I am making one in blue for myself.

For her cowl I used Plymouth 100% Baby Alpaca Grande yarn (I think it is shade 679- dark green with lots of other colors subtly mixed in) which is amazing to work with. It is soooo soft and feels wonderful on the skin (I'm fairly wool sensitive, but alpaca doesn't bother me a bit). The pattern knits up super fast (I used size 10.5 needles). It's just stockinette stitch, exactly like a scarf. Until you get the end. Then you drop a couple of stitches on each side and MAGIC HAPPENS. This is a good project for me, the incureable perfectionist, to have to make something perfect and then intentionally wreck it. Stockinette stitch sometimes gets on my nerves because of the curling in at the edges, but I blocked it wet with straight pins and it doesn't curl at all now.

Anyway, this can be worn long like a regular scarf that just loops at the bottom.

Or looped around the neck a couple of times.

Or looped around the neck once and then over the head for a very dramatic glamorous look that you have to wear as you lay dying on the tundra in Siberia- Hollywood Style, or perhaps whilst hiking over the moors- Hollywood Style, or maybe getting proposed to as a Parisian peasant- Hollywood Style..

Whoa, check the nose. Dude. THAT is a Situation.

Anyway, it is going to be too warm soon to really be useful until fall, but I know she wanted a scarf like this. Maybe her office building will be the A/C'ed meat locker mine always is in the summer and she can wear it to keep warm at work. (Hollywood Style!)

I can't believe how easy it is to learn new knitting techniques using YouTube videos. I was having trouble remembering how to join ends with the kitchener stitch, but this video made it really easy to follow along as I was finishing the scarf. (And I kept repeating to myself, "Front as if to purl, back as if to purl, let it go, back as if to knit, front as if to knit, let it go, front as if to purl, back as if to purl, let it go...." over and over and over and over so that helped too.)

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