Christmas Knitting Progress

Well, I finished the alpaca scarf for my goddaughter. I just have to wash and block it. It’s navy, because she’s a freshman at Penn State. I love that Plymouth Baby Grande! I also made her a Moebius scarf in Diamond Rio, which I think she’ll like because she’s majoring in physics and chemistry. She can’t wear wool at all, so I have to keep an eye on what I use for her.

Fortunately, her brother, my godson, isn’t allergic to anything. However, he’s one of those people who’s never cold and he doesn’t wear scarves. I’m probably going to knit him one anyway, because I don’t like to just send a check without something else.

My sister-in-law’s scarf is coming along beautifully now. I’d started out knitting two repeats of Crest Of The Wave, in plum Cascade 128 on 10-1/2s. That wasn’t working, so I went to 11s, which was a lot better. After I got about four repeats (well over a foot long), I decided it just wasn’t working and I frogged the whole thing. I started looking through my books and found a nice pattern in Scarf Style. It’s “Vintage Velvet”, a reversible cable. The original is knitted in Muench Touch Me and felted. Pretty, but I got the Cascade 128 because it’s warm and my S-I-L lives in northeast Iowa. So it was time for some creativity.

I read over the pattern and decided to omit eight stitches by leaving out two four-stitch repeats ([p2,k2] or [k2,p2]) on each row. This put me at 26 stitches, which, with all the ribbing and the cable, is about six in. wide. I lost some ribs, of course, but the scarf was going to be just too wide otherwise. I’ve got almost two repeats done, over a foot, and it looks pretty good.

My second choice of patterns was the ribbed scarf in Wendy Knits. I think I’m going to use that pattern for my godson’s scarf, only in big chenille, rather than the Cascade Magnum that the pattern calls for. I tried that before and didn’t like the hand at all. I just love those big thick yarns, like Magnum and Jumbo Merino, but not knitted up into such firm fabric.

My sweet husband gave me a nice little Sony digital camera for Christmas. Now I don’t have to borrow his, so I’ll be posting photos of these projects.