Wednesday, December 29, 2010

Scarves and More Scarves

My Christmas gift projects started out with a scarf for my daughter. A couple of months ago, I mentioned to her how I was tired of knitting with thin yarn and yearned to make a project with thick, chunky yarn. She quickly let me know how much she'd love a long scarf made with chunky yarn. How cool was that?! One of the knit groups was meeting that night and it was the perfect opportunity to get started. I left home a little early, equipped with several sizes of thick, chunky knitting needles, and stopped in at the local Michael's store,where I picked up a couple skeins of Wool Ease Thick & Quick yarn in the color "Spice". I went to meet up with the knit girls and quickly got started. The ladies were such a great help! I kept trying different needle sizes and scarf widths until I finally found the right combination that we all felt would work out just right! I knitted for over an hour and realized that two skeins might not be enough. I dashed over to Michael's to grab another skein, hurried back and kept knitting. The next day, I decided I might need one more skein and went back to buy the last one in that dye-lot. It turned out that I didn't need that fourth one but I was happier to have too much than not enough. I love how it turned out and my daughter does too. She's been wearing it everyday since Christmas!


Three skeins, size 17 needles, and 20 stitches across seem to have been just right. The garter stitch texture is wonderful! And, the length works out really great to wrap around her neck like she wanted. I haven't measured it yet but it's reallllly long! She ran upstairs on Christmas night and hung it over the loft wall...


I knitted this scarf with some gorgeous Bernat Rockport yarn that I had in my stash (about 170 yards) and I used size 13 needles. I cast on 12 stitches and knit it in garter stitch.


It's a long and skinny scarf and it looks great wrapped around the neck and hanging long in the front with a white shirt and blue jeans.


The colors and textures in this yarn are yummy! It reminds me of ice cream and fruit. I love the fluffy nubs of white. So pretty!


I made this one for my niece, Sophia. She is in middle school and her mom told me that her favorite colors are pink, purple and green. Imagine my delight to find yarn with all three colors! I used two skeins of Loops & Threads Charisma yarn from Michaels. I used size 10 1/2 needles, cast on 17 stitches and knit it in a knit one, purl one rib.


It's soft, squishy and so cute for a young teen. The acrylic yarn is suprisingly nice and will work great for machine washing.


I crocheted this scarf for Sophia's little sister, Lucy. She's six and her favorite colors are pink and purple. I had a little trouble finding yarn with those colors that would be fun and pretty for her age. I finally found a skein of Red Heart Ltd Kids Multi in the colorway, "Playful". I forgot to note what size hook I used but I ended up chaining 13, turning, making a single crochet in the second chain from the hook and continuing on in rows of 12 single crochets. I tried several different hook sizes and every size twisted! I've never had this problem with all the single crochet scarves I've made in the past. But, I tired of trying and seeing no change and decided to just go with it. I've decided to call it the "Magic Swirly Scarf"! lol...


I discussed this twisty problem with a knit/crochet friend. She had never experienced this problem either. Since it's acrylic, blocking probably wouldn't have helped. But, I kinda think a six year old wouldn't care...in fact, maybe those swirls are kinda neat!


It lays flat when it's folded...


The stitches and colors sure are cute!...

4 comments:

judith said...

Pretty! Love the colors in the twisty scarf.

KarenB said...

You've been very busy my dear! I bet they all loved their scarves. The colors are beautiful. And we've had perfect weather to wear them!

evergreenknits said...

Very impressive! Scarves take such stamina to finish. Lovely!

Angie Elliott said...

Hi Cheryl!
Beautiful work - looks like Lauren really loved it. I received your Christmas card. Thank you!