Day 181 and Fake

This very easy and fast pattern is by another ravelry amateur designer and can be found over yonder. Her idea was to make pretend fringe without ever having to do any fringing. Definitely a suitable project for a beginner with only one row of increase and one row of decrease to fill out the fake fringe.

Day 180 and Strapping

I don't know from leather, but I do know from i-cord! Knitted i-cord makes for a comfortable leather strapping or leather lacing substitute for wearable items. Wrapped around and around the edge of this circular scarf slash cowl, it gives what would otherwise be a rather boring and far too easy cut scarf and gives it some greatly needed detail. There are just a HUGE number of leather workers out there with tutorials on youtube and picture tutorials on their own websites. It's a great place to get other ideas on how to use actual leather of invent your own softer creations using i cord and fabric. (A word of warning: Make sure your search filter is on it's highest setting. Otherwise you can't search for leather without wading through a river of scantily clad women in bits of leather and nothing else.)

Day 179 and Arcadia

I thought this stitch was so much like architecture, I couldn't think of a better name for it. This was another one from the same stitch dictionary as yesterday: Crochet! and because it's all chains and single crochet (double for euro), it's a very fast scarfy.

It seemed like if it was draped, it curled up on itself a lot, so as a way to keep it lying flat, I put tassels on one end only which fit easily through the large arches in the pattern. This makes it more of a collar and easily worn without it being loose and catching on things which would definitely have been an issue with so many large holes.

Day 178 and Giving Up

Do not fear, I have NOT given up my yearlong challenge. I did give up on my planned scarf for today.

I am very happy to have a boyfriend who loves me and cares for me enough to recognize when I would enjoy a gift. He works at our local library and often will come home with withdrawn books as well as new books that he checks out on my behalf. He brought me a very nice crochet pattern dictionary which had a fabulous lace netting stitch with four leaf daisies hooked directly into the net. It had written instructions, a very clear picture, and even a chart.

I consider myself a decent chart reader and it's generally my preferred way to learn a new stitch. I tried for hours to decipher this stitch pattern and though I had words and pictures, I never did get anything that resembled the demonstration swatches. I was defeated. What can I say? It happens to the best of us.

I turned the page and instead did the very next stitch pattern. It's very pretty as well but I'll always know that it was the first time I gave up on a stitch.

Bittersweet.

Day 177 and Hitchhiker

I am superbly bummed out that I didn't have this idea back on day 42 or day 142 or even that I was patient enough to hang on to it until day 242 or 342.

That's right science fiction fans. This is your towel. Don't lose it. If you hang on to it, everyone around you will know that you're a hoopy frood who (because he or she knows where his or her towel is) therefore is unlikely to panic and has a handle on just about any situation.

This was so simple and was made with a very short eyelash or feather yarn held together with two smoother yarns. Traditionally, most towels have near each end the band of fabric which is not fuzzy and often firmer. I mimicked the look by simply switching to three smooth yarns for about three rows and to make it even more distinctly different, I used a slightly lighter color.
Mine was garter stitch and I deliberately made it shorter and wider than most of my scarves to try to make the towel proportion clear.

Here's my recipe!
one ball Bernat Boa (Color A)
70 yrds (60 meters) each of two other yarns of sport weight (mine were mystery stash yarns)
(Colors B and C)
about 6 yards of a lighter colored sport weight yarn (Color D)
Size 35 needles - (The second largest pair I own incidentally)

Cast on 15.
Knit 5 rows with Colors A, B, and C held together. Cut A.
Knit 3 rows with colors B, C, and D held together. Cut D.
Knit about 2.5 feet (3/4 of a meter) with ABC. Cut A.
Knit 3 more rows with BCD. Cut D.
Finish with 5 rows more of ABC.

Couldn't be simpler and is very fast. Now, let's hit the pub and have ourselves a pan galactic gargle-blaster.

This is relevant to my interests!

Wow. It takes a year to knit a scarf! Clever! Read more about it here.

Day 176 and Hoho

I only wish that I had used brown or black fleece. Hindsight is twenty twenty. I originally had hoped to figure out a quick new way to make a little ruffle. All I was doing was zig-zagging some strips of jersey knit across the path of the sewing foot. Upon getting through the first ruffle, I had to stop because of how strongly I was reminded of the little chocolate snack cakes.

Okkay, yes, I know: Hohos have the swirl on the inside, but growing up I associated every hostess snack with the exact same term. This scarf looks more like the cuppy cakes but I'm calling it Hoho anyway!!

Day 175 and Strings

I love how comfortable a nice worn t-shirt can feel, but after a while it needs a little refresher. If you're bold enough to make t-shirt yarn, than you're certainly bold enough to make this easy cowl/necklace/belt.

First, it's important to use a shirt that has no side seams around the lower body. This way when you cut your strings you'll have nice continuous loops. Second, it's important to cut cleanly. Jagged edges will make the strings hang strangely, so go slowly. So here's your basic recipe for a scarf of this kind.

One t-shirt (I prefer 100% cotton)
A small amount of yarn (less than an ounce is needed)
A hook or knitting needles that match the yarn

-Cut the torso of the shirt directly across from the underarm seam to the other under arm seam.
-Cut off the bottom hem.
-Cut long loops by making many parallel cuts through the shirt. Use your eye. I prefer strips that are between 1 and 2 inches.
-Put all the loops together over your arms and give a light stretch to make the fabric curl attractively.
-Option one: With your yarn and tools, make a wide squat rectangle. Use your eye again. It should be tall enough to just barely wrap around one leg of all the loops of t-shirt. Any pattern that you like can be used if you find it attractive. Sew or graft the rectangle so that it traps all the loops.
-Option two: If you don't want any seams to sew you might alternately choose to work in the round. Chain or cast on as many stitches as you need putting the loops in the center of the round before joining. Make a tube (it will enclose the loops naturally without you having to do any extra work) as long as you find attractive in any stitch pattern you like.

It's a very fast project and a good beginner project if you choose the seaming option because the amount of actual stitching is so slight. This might even be a situation in which one could truly wear the very first bit of stitching they ever made

Day 174 and Miters

This seems like such a simple technique and yet I've never done it before. It's basically a garter stitch scarf, but it's made in squares. Each square is mitered by making a centered double decrease every other row creating a very distinct corner. Picking up stitches along the edge of the old and casting on the same amount plus one means that there is no need to sew all the squares together. Interestingly, I had to use garter stitch because when I made the first square and tried to use stockinette, the square turned out more like a kite. This is one place where row gauge for your scarf is actually important. The stitches need to be about square.

Size 9 needles
Various worsted weight scraps.

Cast on 31.
Odd rows: Knit 14(less one stitch every row), Double decrease, K 14(less one stitch every row)
Even rows: Knit across

You'll be taking away 2 stitches every second row and will eventually have only one stitch on the needle. Turn your work, pick up 15 along the edge of the square and cast on 16 with the next color in order to begin the next repeat.

Have fun :)

Day 173 and Spiral

Okkay, you've only got half a yard/meter of fleece and you either don't have a sewing machine or feel intimidated by having to cut up your fabric. Even worse, the idea of seams breaking up the terrific pattern horrifies you! Time for geometry to save the day!

Lay out your fabric and start in the center. Draw a big spiral and you'll be amazed at how far your fabric will seem to grow.
As a bonus, because there are no straight lines, the resulting scarf will ruffle very gently as it drapes in a very attractive manner.

Day 172 and Pizzelles

Have you ever had a pizzelle? It's a very thin crisp highly detailed italian cookie made with a hot iron.


Now look at that up there and tell me you don't see a resemblance to this down here.

Mmmm, those flutey edges and the lacyness are making me hungry. I never would have seen it at all if Kevin hadn't commented that it looked like the aforementioned Italian cookie. Sometimes it just takes a fresh eye to make you see something in a totally different way.

If you want to make one of your own, all you need is Stitchionary 4 and use the edging called "wide scallop." Six repeats and a button placed so that it drapes the way you like is all you need if you use a size I hook and worsted weight yarn.

Day 171 and In the Rough

I was paging through my stitch dictionaries again and came across what seemed like a rather unattractive textured pattern. It wasn't very regular, it wasn't very clear, and it wasn't very deep. It was bland looking. However, the dictionary had a charted as well as written version of the stitch pattern and the chart was far more handsome than the demonstration swatch! Because the chart was clearer than the swatch, I thought I'd give it a try and use different colors on each row to help define the pattern. Result? I was much happier with what I had come up with than what was give in the book.

What's the moral of the story? Go ahead and polish a diamond in the rough.

You may know that I live in the US and right now summer is finally starting to heat up. Don't be at all surprised if you start seeing a lot of very thin, very lightweght, very slight scarves and cowls. Just crafting them is rather warming let alone wearing them. I hope using linen, cotton, silk, and certain manmade fibers will help keep my moving fingers cool.

Just the FAQs, Ma'am

I'm having a lot of fun with my project this year (when I'm not mildly panicked about meeting the deadlines I set for myself). Whenever anyone has interest, I'm happy to answer questions about what I'm doing. Since a small handful of questions keep coming up over and over, I figure everyone might like to hear the answers to them.

Why are you doing this?
Sometimes asked with skepticism, sometimes curiosity, sometimes enthusiasm. I have a number of reasons that all boil down to me wanting to.
1. I almost never set New Year's goals and this seemed like a challenging yet fun goal to achieve.
2. I often get crafter's block. Since necessity is the mother of invention, with a deadline to meet, I have no choice but to dig the creativity out of me even when I'm not feeling it out on the surface.
3. At the time, I had an embarrassing yarn stash (considering the one bedroom apartment I inhabit), but I'm a bit of a magpie and couldn't dream of getting rid of any of it. Having a huge crafting goal seemed like an excellent way to plow through my pile. (It's working and I'm sure to be stash free by the end of the year)
4. I like to share. If I'm going on an adventure, I want to leave a sign post or two so if someone follows, they won't get lost on their similar journey. Since scarves are a natural first project, a basic first design opportunity, as well as an excellent gift project, my hope is that anyone could borrow an idea they see here either use the provided pattern or design their own scarves.

What are you doing with all the scarves?
1. I'll have all my Christmas crafting done LOOONGGG before the holiday.
2. I do one or two craft shows in the fall and I'll pick out some of the scarves to sell.
3. The biggest chunk of them will certainly go to charity. I usually donate directly to local churches, but I also have a couple red scarves in the collection which would be a perfect fit for the Red Scarf Project which offers scholarships and help for foster children. I expect to do even more charity researching closer to winter when warm clothing donations will be most needed.

Are you really doing one a day?
Yes and no. I'm sharing one a day. Most of the time I have about 5 projects started and I have to work a little bit on each of them every day to meet my goals. Sometimes, I start a scarf and finish the same day. Sometimes I have a day off and can finish more than one so I can have my post ready for the following day as well.

Have more questions? Feel free to ask! I'm on twitter (nerdytogether), ravelry ( nerdytogether), or just leave a comment.

Day 170 and the Klein Bottle

This was a toughy. If you've never seen a Klein Bottle before, it's hard to describe in words or even in pictures. Imagine if you will, an object with only one side and no corners and no inside and no outside. There's no possible way to lay this item flat because it's connected to itself everywhere.

Here's a glass depiction:
(Incidentally, the artist sells these glass creations on Etsy)
And here's the scarf I came up with that's the best I could come up with in a day. I made all the surfaces real so even though you can't see it, there's a disc of fabric trapped where the thinner loop and the thicker part of the bottle meet. Finishing was a bear.

Day 169 and Stained Glass

Fabric isn't glass, but oh the colors you can find or even dye yourself! I'm still not very advanced in color work, but a nice long slender window pane helps connect my glass love to this scarf. I tried to get a little bit of light through the color by using lace so, very literally, sunlight will dapple through the very fabric. A fat black outline makes for a clear and direct relationship to the iron outlines of a rose window.

And let's face it, I just really love jewel tones. They all look fabulous together and doesn't every girl love some truly outrageous gems in their outfit? (80's reference!!! :D)

Day 168 and Hiccoughs

Or Hiccups. However you spell it is fine with me. It's funny how putting a stripe of pattern in the middle of a different pattern draws the attention. You can't avoid looking at it because of the very subtle but unexpected texture change. By the way, have you ever stitched with linen? OH, Let me tell you, I have a new favorite fiber with which to crochet! Crochet is notorious for being too bulky for comfortable wearables. Linen makes anything wearable. Even though this was a yarn that was held double, it's still lighter than air and so breathably comfortable, I expect I could wear this in august without breaking a sweat. I'll definitely be yarn shopping for linen and linen blends for all my summer stitching.

It's a very basic stitch pattern and if you need a chart, it's number 70 in Stitchionary 4. This is an easy one and if you're a very fluent crocheter, you could figure this out on sight. 5 DC, 2 shells, 5 DC every row. You'll have this one memorized after the very first row. Happy Hooking!

Day 167 and Run With It

I take a lot of my cues from stitch dictionaries. They're a big fat source of scarves waiting to happen all in one spot. Seventy percent of the time, you can pick a stitch, make a long rectangle and call it a day. Twenty five percent of the time, you can pick a stitch, make a long rectangle, put a border on it and call it a day. It's the last five percent that give you trouble. The last five percent are motifs so you have to make a bunch of them and seam like crazy. The last five percent are embellishment pieces that you can use to add to a scarf, but not make a whole one as is. The last five percent and this is the big one are stitch patterns that make you pull your hair out.

Sometimes the pattern is written incorrectly and you have to try to fix the mistake as you go. Sometimes the terms are in opposite terms of what you're used to and you end up with an entire pattern repeat before you realize that anything is wrong. Sometimes, it's just not a clearly written pattern and every single row you're wondering why you can't get the edges straight or the fabric to lay flat or the bits and bobs of the pattern to look anything like the demonstrated picture.

I say FORGET IT! Fudge that pattern all you want and when you start getting something attractive, RUN WITH IT! I don't know where I heard this quote, but it's been one of my favorites when being creative: A lone mistake is just a mistake, but a mistake repeated is a new pattern. I don't know what was going on with this particular stitch but it was just not happening for me. When it started to look pretty, I just repeated whatever it was I'd been doing. Being the laid back person that I am, I called it happy and I called it a day.

Day 166 and Breathe

I love cowls. They're comfortable. They don't catch on things. They stay put because they have nowhere else to go. They're a nice easy rectangle. One reason one might dislike cowls however is that if you get hot, there's nothing you can do about it except remove the whole thing! With a scarf you could let it hang around your shoulders and get the warmth around the back of your neck and shoulders but not your chest. A cowl doesn't let you do something like that.

Easy solution. Lace. Make some holes in your cowl and the crisp breeze will flow right through. You'll be warm and breathing at the same time.

I used a heavily variegated yarn here, so the design isn't very clear, but if your lace is strictly for comfort then that doesn't make much of a difference. It could be as simple as putting yarn over/knit two together combos randomly or evenly spaced in your fabric.

Day 165 and Cassarole

I'm starting to wonder if that "too much of a good thing" idea was just hooey. Here I had a bunch of leftover bits of novelty yarns but they come together quite well. I had between 4 and 6 yarns being held together in basic garter stitch over 8 stitches on size 19 needles, but they always seem to look good together. The trick for this was to get all the yarns as a whole to be kind of close to the same weight. Sometimes I had to drop a mid weight yarn to pick up a bulky one. I was more inclined to use the bulky yarns because as far as leftovers tend to go, they always have the least yardage. Case in point, one of the thin railroad yarns that was a leftover made it all the way from beginning to end!

Day 164 and Teacher's Mask

Your first project probably wasn't that good looking. I made a practice swatch out of a hideous washed out traffic cone orange and the fiber was a squeaky uncomfortable 20 year old Orlon acrylic. It's a wonder that I kept up with it at all!

In any case, let's say you want to teach someone how to crochet. This unusual mask/cowl has all the basic stitches that a fresh new student would want to know! Naturally you have to chain to start the fabric, then single crochet to get the hang of it. Increase a little bit and decrease so that you can shape for future projects. Use a double crochet stitch for a while to get you started with texture on the fabric. End with a loop style button hole. Separately, practice the magic circle method to demonstrate how to work in rounds and use it as a button to better understand the best places to sew in loose ends.

It's all so basic, but everyone was a beginner at first, right?

Day 163 and Hearties

Or.. Pacmans? Pacmen. Now that I see how my tension looks with this particular stitch patter, I really really wish I had used black and yellow for this design. Maybe I still will! Who knows?? In any case, let's put up a link there to the stitch pattern.

Day 162 and Lattice

Sometimes I'm just not feeling that inspired, but it doesn't mean the end product isn't either pretty, comfortable or fashionable. I went the easy route today and found an easy lattice work pattern that also worked up quickly. I have a couple other scarves in the works at all times, but sometimes a deadline is your enemy instead of your motivation. Alas. On the other hand, I did learn that heavily variegated yarns are most definitely the enemy of distinct pattern.

Day 161 and Washington

These need to come back into fashion. I always see the gentlemen wearing these in 18th century oil paintings but in brighter colors and bigger ruffles they really become a ladies ascot.

This couldn't have been easier. With bulky yarn and a size M hook, I started with 20 double crochet stitches on the first row. Decreased for every stitch down to 10. On the third row I decreased again. Crochet even until it's just barely long enough to tie into an overhand knot around the wearer's neck and increase by double crocheting twice in each stitch for two rows and doing one row even for length. I know it's just a recipe, but I feel confident that even a beginner can follow this very very basic layout.

Day 160 and Tarn

I'm swimming in t-shirts. I really really am. So here's another t-shirt yarn (tarn) creation. This time I took advantage of the fact that each strip was only so long by figuring that each strip could make two rows of seven stitches. Some of the strips were longer than others, so I figured I could just let those be cut short. I opted for the nice clean stockinette stitch and because the beginning of the tarn met the end, I just tied a knot thinking that a slight fringe would be nice.

Well slight fringe ended up not catching my fancy. I placed it on the manny before trimming and thought the really long fringed bits actually looked pretty cool and instead of cutting them all even, I cut them into a wedge with the longest points at the center. They aren't all evenly wedged, but they still look pretty good to me. At the back there were only four long pieces but three were evenly spaced. I cut them such as to have the longest one in the center, two shorter ones flanking and the extra piece was cut to blend in with all the rest.

Yet another piece that I don't think I'm quite hip enough to wear. I better get cool ;)

Day 159 and Patterns

There are thousands upon thousands of written and charted patterns in the world already. I've used a few so far, but it still seems a shame not to do my best to check out a nice wide spectrum of them. This one was from a magazine I bought back in 2004... and sadly it feels like an awfully long time ago. Still, some very basic designs remain quite handsome for a good long time.

The downside to using a pattern is that you have to figure out the mistakes the hard way: by making them and frogging them back out. This pattern had only lines of pattern, but line 2 was very very incorrect. I spotted it pretty early and luckily it was easy to see the problem. If you happen to have a much tougher mistake in your pattern, turn to your peers and the local experts in your knitting group, family, or LYS. There's no shame in asking for a quick revision.

Day 158 and Growing up

You might not recognize this stitch pattern, but I've used it before. It's the same heart bump as generations but I've been fiddling to try and make it a flat stitch pattern instead of just an edging or a motif. I think it needs a little bit of work still, but how better to make patterns work than to make new and different prototypes? It could be that the bulky weight stitches are hiding the pattern, or that I need to work on making a more self solid design, but either way, I have a scarf to present and a growing repertoire of techniques. :)

Day 157 and Purse Chain

Did you ever see those chains that are used as a handle on leather purses? It's always just a bit of leather woven through a basic metal chain. I figured I could recreate that on a much larger scale with the biggest darn filet crochet mesh boxes you ever did see. I used double treble crochet (which I guess would be treble treble in Euro terms?) and chained 10 and did a single column of boxes. It took next to no time at all and now that it's over, I wish I had used a metallic yarn. There's always tomorrow ;)

Day 156 and Rings

This was a lot more fun than it sounds. One would think that having to make each ring separately would be a complete pain. One would think that sewing all the ends in would drive a body mad. One would think an impatient person like me couldn't handle it.

One would be incorrect. With tapestry needle in hand, it was actually a lot faster and a lot less annoying than I anticipated. And since you can crochet over the beginning yarn end, there is actually only one end per ring.

As for the actual construction, I just improvised a pattern, but this motif is quite old and usually called something along the lines of "wedding ring stitch." I used a size M hook and doubled simply soft to make it happen, changing colors at random for each ring. Getting the right proportions between the size of the ring, the number of stitches and the number of beginning chains took some ripping and re-hooking.

Chain 14, join with slip to beginning chain. Chain 3, 26 dbl crochet into the ring. Join the final stitch to the beginning chain by sewing it in place and hiding the end.

All the rings are made the same way, but before joining the chain, thread it through the previous ring. The trickiest part is making sure all the rings face the same way. Always thread the chain in the same direction (eg. back to front) and it'll come out fine. The outer edge I fudged a bit, but in general, I did 6 DC into each ring along each edge and (DC3, DC inc) 3 times, DC3 for each end ring. You might find fudging to be the best course of action as well. It's a very organic stitch, but I think the results are worth it.

Day 155 and Barbershop

The way the colors swirled around made me think of a barber pole. While you COULD choose to just wrap the two thin scarf pieces around each other, they wouldn't stay twisted nicely without guidance. By tacking them together with a slip stitch at every twist, they stay put, but are still mostly separate to give the right impression.

This is also a bittersweet loss of yarn. I believe this particular yarn is discontinued and I was very sad to know that there was so much less in my stash. I'll miss you, pretty metallic yarn.

Day 154 and the Structure

I was going one way with this scarf before it took a turn and ended up somewhere else. I'll tell you about what I was originally planning later because it's still a potential future scarf.

I happened to be using a combination of hook and yarn which I noticed had a lot of negative work space despite the weight being a match for the hook size. Something about the structure of the yarn made every single stitch a separate entity. Seeing this, I took an opportunity to use the stitches themselves to stand in for what would otherwise require specific shaping and finishing.

The stitches stood with enough space around them that I began tapering by means of your classic double crochet decrease in order to end with a very clear point. The size and shape and stitch definition made it so I could thread the point of the resulting triangle through the very stitches as if I had designed a keyhole in the first place.

I suppose this is a clear case of the improvised doghouse outshining the heavily planned treehouse. Yes I know that's not a phrase, but I just said it; you're now free to use it!

In case you want to duplicate this scarf the basic recipe is thus: Katia Somoa Yarn and a size K crochet hook. Chain 20 and work 3 rows of double crochet (american). On the fourth row, make a decrease at the end of the row followed by 3 more rows worked even. When you only have 4 stitches, decrease every second row and tie off when only one stitch is left. I expect other woven tape style yarns would give a similar structure. If they're on the thin side, use treble crochets and decrease slightly more often.

Too Awesome not to Share

No, they aren't scarves, but I had to take a time out and share these HILARIOUS little finger puppets! I'm in the Harry Potter Knit and Crochet House Cup Group on Ravelry and this was a quidditch project. I can't hardly stand how stinkin cute they are!

Day 153 and Generations

Whenever you sort of make up a stitch pattern or in this case a motif, you'll feel the need to play with it a little bit. In this case, I used the bump from the heart from a couple days ago and used it as a scalloped edge for a simple straight forward scarf. I learned that the bump takes up FAR less yarn than the traditional shell scallop would have and I expect I'll be playing with it a couple more times before I'm satisfied. :)

Day 152 and Entrelac

This I can honestly say is my first taste of Entrelac (interlace knitting) and I can with confidence say that I get it... mostly. I couldn't get my end stitches to match what my instructions told me it should be so I had to fudge a bit, but the main bit of knitting was just fine. If you don't like picking up stitches or turning your work A LOT then this probably isn't the technique for you. If however you can knit backwards as well as forward and love lots of increasing a decreasing, then I suspect you'll have quite a lot of fun with entrelac. It seems like the kind of knitting where familiarity begets usefulness. Right now I can't make more than a rectangle, such as for this cowl, but I can see where a little practice will go a long way and you'll hopefully see something a little more impressive later in the year.

One other thing. If you've never tried entrelac (there are lots of videos and tutorials all over the web) my single best piece of advice is this: Don't use more than one color for your first try. I wish I hadn't because there are SOOO many ends to weave in at the end and there are SOOO many ends to get in your way while you're knitting, and there are SOOO many loose untied pieces that you have to hold tension on while turning the triangles and rectangles. If I hadn't given myself this scarf challenge, I would have frogged this first attempt and pouted for a week before trying again (in retrospect, it's kind of funny). Next time I do this technique, I'll surely use a single color just until I feel more secure.