The Scarf

Well, I finally finished it. Just in time for Spring. Of course.
I have no idea what to call this baby. The only thing I called it while knitting it is not exactly a proper name for a garment, if you know what I mean.


It was knit for my friend Jan who, along with her husband, have thoroughly spoiled us since we moved here. She recently (last week) retired from television and this seems like a good and proper gift, commemorating the fact that she won't be standing out in the cold at 4am doing news reports any more. Yay, Jan!!


It was motivated by the yarn, a 40/60 Alpaca/Merino blend in sport weight from Yarn Treehouse and inspired by that pattern in my Vogue Crochet Scarves book I was telling you about. The knit-crochet pattern looks great, but it is not an easy stitch. You know how when you read a pattern you translate it into words while you knit? You know, you turn K3, P2, K3, YO, into knit 3, purl 2, knit 3, yarn over. Except while you're doing it, it sounds more like kniiiiiiit threeeeee, puuuurrrrllll twooooo, etc, etc. Well, this pattern has a S2K3togP2sso. That's right. Slip 2, Knit 3 together, pass the 2 slipped stitches over. Except when I come to it in my row, in my head it sounds like this, "Two yaaaarn overs, knit one, two yaaaarn overs, biiiiitch stiiiiiiiitch, two yaaarn overs, knit one, two yaaarn overs, biiiiiitch stiiiiiiitch, two yarn overs....." etc.
Totally worth the angst. It really is beautiful and I hope it's not too itchy.

Here's the how-to:

This was knit in 3 pieces. I did the two lace pieces at the same time then knit the middle intending to graft them with a k2tog from the two pieces as I went. It was far too unweildy. I just knit the middle and then grafted them together with a simple whipstitch. (yay for black yarn)

Materials:

Sport Weight Yarn. Mine is Yarn Treehouse(as I said) 100g, 330 yards. I used one ball plus about 50-75 yards of another.

Size US 4 needles. I used Addi Lace Turbo 32"circs. Pointy needles are your friend with this one, folks!

Directions:

The Crochet-Knit Shell Pattern advises you to cast on a multiple of 6 plus 3. I added a border so there are 4 added to that.

CO 37 Stitches (Do everything twice if you intend to do both halves at once, once from the inside of the ball and once from the outside.)

Purl one row.

Row 1: P2, K1*YO, K1* to last 2 stitches, P2

Row 2: P2, Knit across, dropping all YO's from previous row to last 2 sts, P2

Row 3: P2, K3tog *2YO, K1, 2YO, Sl 2, K3tog, P2SSO* end with 2YO, K1, 2YO, K3tog, K1, P2

Row 4: P2, K1 *K1, Kfb of 2YO (knit into both "legs" of the double yarn over)* end with K2, P2

Row 5: P2, K1 *YO, K1* to last 2 stitches, P2

Row 6: P2, Knit across, dropping all YO's from previous row to last 2 sts, P2

Row 7: P2, K1 *K1, 2YO, Sl , K3tog, P2SSO, 2YO* K2, P2

Row 8: P2, K1 *K1, Kfb of 2 YO (same as Row 4)* end with K2, P2

Knit these 8 rows to desired length (about 48-50 inches)

Part 2:

CO 100 stitches.

Knit, slipping first stitch of each row, until piece is the same width as first two pieces.

Graft, checking that two lace pieces have the Right Side facing the same way.

What I would do differently:

I would CO the middle piece using long-tail instead of backward loop. I might also make the lace pieces about 6 stitches (one shell) narrower so I didn't have to dig into the extra ball.