Day 281 and OnePiece

Here's a weird one with a very unique result!

I took a piece of fabric that's been in my stores forever and decided to put it to use. It's once thing to make yarn out of fabric strips, but in this case I didn't make strips. I only made slices in the fabric. Now because a column of knitting is only concerned with the other stitches in its own column, I was able to work stitches as if it were a run in the fabric or a dropped ladder. At the top, only the furthest left edge needs to be cut to secure the bind off in the normal way.

Since the edges are not stitches but a fabric edge, a very interesting ruffled effect is created. Because I used stockinette, it curls, but as you can see in the photo, this just allows the scarf to have two sides. On one side is the raggy knit look and on the other side is the ruffle.

Day 280 and PieceNoWork

At a quick glance one might think that this was patched together from various smaller swatches, but what's actually happening here is a very long color self striping yarn being used to trick the eye. Every time the color changed, I also changed the texture. As a result, each color looks very disjointed from the color before and after it.

I held two yarns together here and had to employ some interesting possibly improvised techniques. I lined up the color changes as best I could as I started, but not every change perfectly matched with the changes on the other ball. On these occasions, I pulled the strand that wasn't changing yet forward until it looked as if it would match the other ball. Then with the big loop I just made, I went ahead and kept knitting. Many times I ended up right where i needed to be, placed the final loop on the needles and picked up the yarn from the row below which now matched and continued knitting.

Day 279 and Plumage

There are a number of novelty yarns out there that are specifically designed to be split rather than knit normally so that the mass of the ribbon/mesh/tape is slightly gathered and free to make a substantial ruffle. Can-Can, Ruffle and Flounce yarns all come to mind. And while I think it's a clever idea, I also think that enough is probably too much. So for my ruffly scarf, I used a little less ruffle and a little more of a similar colored smooth yarn to break up the effect.

The trickiest part was using the right ratio. After a few frogs (and tape yarn frogs very easily by the way) I found that three rows of smooth yarn and one row of ruffle suited me just fine. Since a single row would end the working yarn at the wrong end, I had to work with a circular needle so as to slide the work to the other end to make the working yarn available once again. That was the only real hang up. You could also use a long enough double pointed needle or even a pair of straights as long as you don't mind slipping an entire row every 4th row.

Day 278 and Mockery

I love cables! Since not everyone feels the confidence to do them just yet, a two stitch twist is a perfect transition to technique or just a nice fake when you don't have the third needle.

I can't say that this is the best representation. The texture disappeared a little more than I was expecting. But anyway, it's easy to do with a little practice. There are a number of ways to make a twist including working the second stitch followed by the first while both stay on the needle. You can also knit two together again keeping the stitches on the needle, then knitting the first stitch a second time. It makes much more sense if you actually execute it. Once again, I recommend youtube to see it in action. Search for twist stitch or twist cables.

Day 277 and Firewood

It just looks rugged and homey doesn't it? So a nice ribbing looks great, and a nice ribbing continues to look great when rotated a little bit, don't you think? On its side, this 3 by 3 rib reminds me of stacked up firewood. I used a natural fiber here (alpaca) and a thick needle (size 15). It was fast, it requires no pattern at all except to cast on a number divisible by 6 and to knit until you can't knit any longer.

Day 276 and Duckies

Let's say you have a very small amount of yarn and want it to go a long way. There are lots of ways to make your yardage go a long way and this is just one of them.

There's no rule that says a scarf has to be the same width along the entire length. A good cheat for making a scarf look more substantial is to make it slender around the neck and making the hanging parts much wider. Here, I started with 15 stitches at the ends and did a mitered corner until only 5 stitches remained for the longer body of the scarf. Because I wanted both ends to match, I made two beginnings and seamed the center.

Day 275 and Tweed

I love a nice barberpoled yarn (the stuff with plies of vastly different colors so that one color looks like it's a barber pole with the color winding around and around). I think it's the perfect type of yarn to use for a clean lined basic stockinette stitch item. The color lends texture to an otherwise smooth fabric, and you're using it to best advantage since more detailed stitch patterns would be lost in the color variation.

I also noticed that I haven't done hardly any BIG cowls. I'm generally a fan of tightly snugged cowls that mess your hair up when you pull them over your head, but I can see how a bigger cowl that can be twisted slightly and tucked into your coat has its own appeal. I went with a nice basic garter and stockinette squares motif. Basically, work garter stitch along the edges, stockinette int he center and break it up with a horizontal line of stockinette spaced evenly for something handsome and unisex.