This year I decided to knit my mom and sister something for christmas. After completing my first ribbed k2p2 project, I decided to do another one for my family. However this time around, my goal was to explore the world of color knitting.
The Red Scarf
(Natural with tiny strands of black)
I knit this scarf with a knit 4:purl 2 pattern. I also knit this with a size 17 needle. I was quite happy with how it turned out.
The scarf is really nice and thick and very warm. I was actually debating on keeping the scarf for myself, but of course I couldn't do that. I figure I would just make myself one another day. However mid progress, a couple of my coworkers who seen me work on it really
wanted to take the scarf too, but I was able to fend them off by threatening to stick my knitting needles into their eyeballs. The project took about 2 days to finish and took about 2 skeins of the main color to finish. I finished the scarf with some white fringes. Although weaving in the extra yarn proved to be really annoying. Thick yarn + Many weaves = Lumps! I tried to hide it as much as I could, especially when they were so close together but I guess it still turned out okay.My mom really LOVED the scarf...but so did my sister! I'm sure she'll probably sneak into my mom's closet and wear the scarf. I should have made 2!
The Pink Bowler Hat.
Color A: Red Heart - Soft Yarn - Light Grey Heather: No Dye LotColor B: Caron - Simply Soft - Soft Pink: No Dye Lot
The hat was knit with 2 size 10 bamboo circular needles. I was not happy with the bamboo. It had too much drag, so now I try to buy non-wooden needles.
This was my first project knitting rounds. I did my research around the internet and found that I would probably and most likely hate using double pointed needles...I also found out that I was not alone! I decided instead, that I wanted to learn how to knit in rounds using 2 circular needles. Needless to say...I'm glad I went with my instincts.
This hat would have been perfect if I didn't experiment. But how would you learn if you couldn't experiment?! Because of my experience with The Red Scarf, I was afraid that I
would have the same problems weaving in the ends. Reading a few articles about color knitting, I found out that when knitting faire isle, one usually carries the the non-working colored yarn over stitches. However, I should have realized that the technique probably won't work well when used with Intarsia. I ended up having a really stiff chunk where the color was. Instead of frogging the whole thing, I just cut the carried yarn and did more weaving than I would have wanted! As a result there were a bunch of loose stitches. I crossed my fingers and stuck it in the wash and dryer in hopes of it shrinking (my lazy way of blocking). In the end, it wasn't too bad.The hat took about 4 days to make, but it sat cold for 3 weeks waiting to be weaved in. My sister like it, but she really had her eye set on The Red Scarf.
Thanks to my fiancee for modeling the finished product.
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