As a child I crocheted all the time. I saved my allowance to buy yarn. I was forever cajoling the adults in my family to buy yarn for me. I made afghans, scarves, hats, and stuffed animals. But then I stopped crocheting when adolescence hit me. When I was expecting my first child my mother taught me how to knit. I loved it even more than crocheting and made tons of clothes for my daughter and sweaters for my husband. However, my husband never wanted to wear the sweaters because he said they were too tight. I didn’t believe him because I always knitted to gauge so I figured they couldn’t be too tight. Finally I just stopped knitting and didn’t pick up knitting needles for the next forty years.
Last November I went to Target with some of the reference librarians who wanted me to buy lots of candy for the reference desk. (This is how they are able to cope with the hundreds of questions they get each day. Chocolate keeps your brain sharp!) Anyway, right near the checkout was a huge bin of fancy yarns that had been marked down to twenty-five cents a skein! I bought $54 worth!
Now that I had this enormous quantity of yarn I determined to make scarves. I made some scarves for my daughters and a scarf and a beautiful stole for myself. I borrowed some books from the library and my knitting skills came back fairly fast. Right away I understood why my husband’s sweaters had felt too tight – My gauge for the knitting had been right, but my casting on and binding off had been so tight that the entire piece of work would not stretch the way a knit is supposed to.
Now that I was back into knitting at full steam I decided to make every person on my staff a scarf for his or her birthday and every scarf would be from a different pattern and/or type of yarn. I have a staff of 56! January through March went very well. I think not many people have January through March birthdays. Then April brought six birthdays, and I fell two scarves behind. May had seven birthdays. I’m just now finishing the third May scarf. I will continue to make a scarf for everyone, but they sure won’t get one by their birthday. Nobody wants to wear a scarf in the summer anyway.
Last week I was at Michael’s buying more yarn. I try to check for yarn sales every week or so. I passed the sets of crochet hooks looking all lovely in their bright colors and bought a hook in every size. Now some of the scarves will be crocheted.
When I’m not knitting or crocheting I’ll try to take pictures of the work and give the pattern.
I made four scarves from a pattern for a ruffled scarf that the Washington Post published in January. I used different yarns each time, and they all worked very well. Here’s the pattern:
The Really Ruffled Scarf
About four balls of interesting yarn such as fun fur or confetti – You need about 200 yards of yarn.
Size 10 circular needle – I was only able to find a 36 inch long one, but a longer needle would work better.
Cast on 100 stitches.
Row 1 – Knit front and back of each stitch. You now have 200 stitches.
Row 2 – Knit each stitch.
Row 3 – Knit front and back of each stitch. You now have 400 stitches.
Row 4 – Knit each stitch.
Row 5 – Knit front and back of each stitch. You now have 800 stitches. (See where this is going?)
Row 6 – Knit each stitch.
Row 7 – Knit front and back of each stitch. You now have 1600 stitches.
Row 8 – Knit each stitch.
Bind off.
It just makes cascades of ruffles and looks great. I made one in Lion Brand’s Homespun that works well as a very warm scarf for outdoors. The ones I did in fun fur type yarns are lighter weight and can be worn indoors.
