Ruffle Mesh Scarves, or “We Are All Individuals”

I’m going through another lemming phase. Is there any corner of the world that hasn’t been hit by Ruffle Mesh Scarf Frenzy? I thought it was an isolated event, perhaps an English thing, because the first ruffle mesh scarf I encountered was knitted by the English mother of a coworker. Here’s Elana’s black and grey scarf worked in Samba yarn:

I thought I would have to order yarn from the UK, until I happened to see ruffle mesh yarn in Yetsirah in Talpiyot (HaUman Street) and bought a couple balls from their wide selection of Kartopu “Lace”, a Turkish yarn:

The next day, I walked into Ahuva’s room at work and … she was wearing a ruffle mesh scarf that she had made. She doesn’t even knit! The store owner in the shuk taught her how to “cast on” six stitches and work back and forth until the yarn was used up. She used an Israeli version of this yarn manufactured by Teddy. (Photo below: Ahuva, multimedia wiz and Gur hassid — not a combination you encounter every day):

Just for the record, Ahuva thought the Teddy yarn was too limp and fine. She ended up casting on 8 stitches and skipping meshes in order to get a fuller ruffle.

Here’s my first finished scarf. Subdued little critter, ain’t it? It makes my brightest sweaters look muted.

Ahuva passed on a useful hint. This yarn gets very twisted when it comes off the ball and you spend a lot of time untwisting the yarn and spreading the meshes. It’s much easier to work if you wrap the ball of yarn around a piece of cardboard.

You need 100 grams for one scarf. Prices vary between 24 and 26 NIS (and if you’re thinking of making a killing on Etsy, you’re about three months too late!). The technique is not true knitting. It’s a looping technique that uses knitting needles. I had no idea how these scarves were made when I bought a couple balls in Yetsirah on my way to a wedding at Yarok be’Ir in Talpiot. I asked the saleswoman what size needles I needed and she insisted on showing me when she realised that I had never knit it before. She cast on 6 stitches, knitted a row, watched me knit a row, and slipped the stitches onto a paper clip. Here’s a video that explains the process. One difference is that I was taught to tie a knot in the yarn at the beginning. The knot doesn’t show. After I cast off, I pulled the tail through the last loop, tied a knot, and cut the tail off. It seems to hold well and doesn’t require sewing.

Orenburg Square Medallion Shawl – Approaching the Halfway Mark

Update (Feb. 16): As Isabelle and others have noticed, there are mistakes in the pattern. Fortunately, Mairi has written corrections on her Ravelry page.

I just realised that I’m long overdue for an update on this project. The pattern is the Square Medallion Shawl from The Gossamer Webs Design Collection: Three Orenburg Shawls to Knit. I was starting to despair of this shawl ever being finished.

I started knitting this shawl in linen and realised that linen isn’ t stretchy enough for Orenburg shawl construction, although it would have been fine for a Niebling doily. So I ripped it out and started over, using a lace-weight off-white wool (Botany Bay, probably a knitting machine yarn).

Then I found a hole:

It was too large to ignore, so I ripped back 60 rows. That was painful. The wool was so springy that picking up yarn-overs proved tricky. In the photo below I ran a 1.5 mm circular needle through the stitches. Even working under a magnifying glass I still ended up with half the stitches from one row and the other half on another row.

After ripping out thousands of stitches (60×200 rows or so), I put away the project for a while. I resumed it after the pain of ripping out all those stitches had faded.

Have you tired of my knitting posts yet? I was housebound for two weeks, so there wasn’t a lot to photograph. Now I’m back at work, with less time to knit.

Channeling My Inner Hobbit (Finished Cowl)

I wanted a really fast knitting project to use up some of my yarn. I was very surprised to find this bulky roving-type yarn in my closet because I almost never knit on needles larger than 4 mm. It must have been someone’s stash cull. It’s not the sort of thing I would buy. I have no idea of the yardage because there’s so little information on the label (Tsemer haHasidah “Berber”) but the entire piece took 430 gms of yarn. The pattern is called GAP-tastic Cowl, a free download on Ravelry.

I haven’t purchased yarn for years, unless you count the small quantities to make kippot (yarmulkes) for the menfolk in my family. Someone told me about Esse, a site that sells Estonian yarn, so I bought 150 gms of Aade Löng Natural 8/2 in grey and Aade Löng Artistic 8/2 in “Rainbow,” along with some circular needles. The order was shipped within two days and arrived two days later by registered mail. I’m very pleased with the service so far. It seems to be located in Haifa.

The stock seems to vary from week to week (I couldn’t find the same grey yarn when I checked the site today) and is limited to Aade Löng wool in 3 weights, various Grignasco cottons, and a large selection of Addi needles and crochet hooks. Wow. When I came to Israel in 1989 it was nearly impossible to find lace needles, circulars in different lengths (other than 100 cm), and very thick or thin needles. It’s unbelievable to see how much is available nowadays.

Today is my last day of sick leave. The stitches were taken out this morning and I’m wearing normal shoes again. I had hoped to run a few errands but the country is in the midst of a severe dust storm. A strong, bone-chilling wind is blowing sand and dust everywhere. The sky looks yellow. Normally you can see buildings on the hillside across the wadi. I took this photo from my balcony.

Orenburg Honeycomb Scarf

I need another knitting project, right? Actually, I had a problem — I have two balls of lace-weight yarn (blue Jaggerspun Zephyr and a ball of purple machine-knitting yarn), not enough to make a scarf individually, but together they will be sufficient. I’ve alternated two rows of blue with two rows of purple. I wanted another lace project, one that I could carry around and wouldn’t require a chart.

I found the gauge to be a little “off” from my own. I am using size 2 (2.75 mm) needles and cast on 106 stitches for a 19″ wide scarf or shawl. The original pattern called for 130 stitches, which produced much too wide a shawl. If I had access to more of this yarn I might have knitted it as a stole, but I was concerned that I wouldn’t have enough yarn to complete the project.

The “Orenburg Honeycomb Lace Scarf to Knit,” by Galina A. Khmeleva, is published in PieceWork magazine (May/June 2010). At the moment, this back issue is still in stock. It’s their third annual lace issue, with an article on Herbert Niebling and a pattern for the lovely bag on the cover.

Mosaic Knitting: Color with Slip Stitches

I knitted this mosaic jacket aeons ago, using my lumpy-bumpy beginner handspun. Apart from the experience in mosaic knitting, it taught me a valuable lesson about cleaning VM (= vegetable matter) out of fleece before spinning it. If you skip this step or card in a lot of burrs, leafy bits, and other debris, you will end up picking it out of the sweater for the rest of its life. I have whiled away many a boring meeting by picking bits of twigs out of this sweater. It’s a less thrilling diversion than it sounds.

The central panel on the back is from Melanie Falick’s Knitting in America.

Mosaic knitting a name for working colours with slip stitches. It has a couple advantages: because it doesn’t require bobbins or carrying yarns along the back, the tension is very easy to control. The technique results in a slightly denser fabric than ordinary stockinette or garter stitch, which is desirable in outerwear.

I knitted this baby jacket for my son about 17 years ago. At the time I thought the pattern was my own invention, but it’s found in Barbara Walker’s Mosaic Knitting book, which shows that there’s nothing new under the sun! The background is a grey fingering-weight acrylic. The design yarn was a ball of lots of leftover yarns tied together. It’s an easy way to use up leftover yarns, as long as you’re careful to weave in the ends as you go. If you haven’t mastered the knack (not rocket science) you will go mad trying to darn in all the ends afterwards.

Want to give this a try? Here are some resources:

• On-line Tutorial: http://www.smart-knit-crocheting.com/mosaic-knitting.html
• Another on-line tutorial: Slip in Some Color, by Kristi Porter
• Barbara Walker’s book, Mosaic Knitting (a classic, with lots of wonderful patterns)
• Roxanna Bartlett’s Slip-Stitch Knitting
• On-line Pattern Generator
• Mosaic Knitting section of the Walker Treasury Project
• Video by Norah Gaughan:

Modular Knitting with Mitered Squares

Does anyone remember the modular mitered square knitting craze a few years ago? It was great for using up odd bits of yarn. This turquoise sweater was knitted mainly from a beloved but very worn sweater that I knitted from Tahki Donegal Tweed yarn when I was in grad school. The sweater had lost its shape and the yarn was becoming faded and brittle around the neck and cuffs, so I unraveled it and reknitted it into this sweater, along with bits of my stash.

Here’s a view of the back:

This purple vest has a similar origin. I had knitted a short-sleeve sweater around the same time, back at Harvard, and it was getting a bit worn. Also, the sleeves were a bit shorter than I liked, since I wasn’t religious in those days. I unraveled the yarn and it sat in balls in my closet for years, until a friend gave me a variegated yarn purple, blue and green yarn. This variegated yarn had a matte finish, in contrast to the mercerized cotton of my purple sweater. I used a repeating heart-shaped module for the front and back.

I noticed recently that I have very few photographs of all the things I’ve knitted over the years, so I’m slowly trying to record these things.

If you’re interested in learning the basics of modular knitting, Vivian Hoxbro’s Domino Knittingis an excellent, clearly written guide.

For eye candy, check out Horst Schulz’s books:

• Patchwork Knitting (This one seems to be only available from used booksellers)
• New Patchwork Knitting Fashion for Children
• Das neue Stricken. Pullover – Jacken – Westen.

There are a few newer books. I haven’t read them, so I can’t vouch for their contents but they look interesting!

• Modular Knits: New Techniques for Today’s Knitters
• Woolly Thoughts: Unlock Your Creative Genius with Modular Knitting (Dover Knitting, Crochet, Tatting, Lace)
• Knits from a Painter’s Palette: Modular Masterpieces in Handpainted Yarns
• Module Magic: Creative Projects to Knit One Block at a Time

I found a few sites with patterns:

http://blog.nobleknits.com/2009/04/two-mitered-square-knitting-projects.html

http://atelier918.typepad.com/portableknitting/2006/04/mitered_square_.html

http://www.knittingdaily.com/blogs/daily/archive/2010/06/23/modular-knitting.aspx

and a video with Eunnu Jang:

That should be enough to get you started!

Tomorrow I’ll be literally off my feet for a while. I’m having surgery on my right foot, the same one that was operated on a year ago for a bunion. This time I’m having the pins and hardware taken out, so I’ll be off work for a couple weeks. Feel free to come by with offerings of chocolate and sushi. (Not together, mind you….)

Pattern: Garter Rib Scarf

A sure sign of winter is knitting in my hands.

I used to knit a lot — lace tablecloths, counterpanes, doilies, sweaters, shawls, scarves, leg warmers, Moebius strips, hand warmers, hats, fruit, miniature socks with sewing thread and .5mm needles, wire jewelry, beaded bags, the list goes on and on. At some point I must have reached overload because I slowly realised that I had stopped knitting. (I haven’t even photographed most of my knitting!)

But I still knit when the weather turns cold. Taking up photography spurred me to take up knitting again, because suddenly I needed warm woolly things like leg warmers and fingerless gloves. Here’s a scarf that I just finished. The pattern is very easy but looks impressive. It’s reversible and it doesn’t curl. What more could you ask for? My version is 5 inches wide and 60 inches long, because I like to fold it in half and tuck the ends through the loop. You can increase the number of stitches if you prefer a wider version, as long as it’s a multiple of 4 plus 2.

The pattern repeat is only one row and it forms alternating strips of 2 stitches of garter stitch and 2 stitches of twisted rib (knit/purl). I made it from some German wool that had been in my stash for ages. The orange, blue, and purple strands match my purple coat. (I sewed this wool melton coat about 15 years ago and have worn it every winter since!)

Garter-Rib Scarf

Materials:
US size 8 (5 mm, UK size 6) knitting needles
150 grams (about 6 oz) of worsted weight yarn

Gauge: 9 stitches = 2 inches

Directions:

Cast on 26 stitches (or a multiple of 4 + 2).

Row 1: * k2, k1 through back, p1, * k2.

Repeat Row 1 until you have about 24 inches of yarn left.

Cast off.

Endless Baana Scarf Finished

This was the most tedious knitting project I’ve done in ages. I bought the pattern for $2 from KnitPicks because I didn’t know about it when it was free on Ravelry. (Honestly, I don’t know why I bought a pattern when I could have figured it out myself. I think I was seduced by the novelty of buying and downloading a pattern on-line — instant gratification!)

The triangular scarf (the pattern actually calls it a “shawlette”) starts at the back of the neck. You cast on a few stitches, increase at 4 points (two in the center and one at each outer edge) and knit linen stitch until you run out of yarn or patience. I ran out of patience long before I ran out of yarn but I forced myself to finish because the project was too heavy for me to keep carrying it around at the bottom of my backpack.

The things that I dislike about linen stitch are (a) it’s too fiddly to be mindless, (b) it’s too mindless to be interesting, and (c) it requires a rather large needle size (4.5mm) relative to the size of the yarn, which I find uncomfortable and awkward.  I knitted this rather small scarf with 2 x 50-gm skeins of cotton (about 80 m/50 gm). If I’d chosen a finer yarn, like sock yarn with more yardage, I probably wouldn’t have needed two skeins. OK, so the stitch itself was not a good fit with my knitting personality.

The increasing method (m1 from strand between stitches) is not easy to execute in linen stitch, where every other stitch is slipped. The two center increases were apt to leave holes, so I changed the center increases to k1 in front and back.

The eyelet row was easy to execute. The picot edge was rather fiddly and the instructions were not very clear. My advice is to grab a crochet hook and do your own picot edge. All that “cast on 2 sts/cast off 2 sts” gets very repetitious. At least the edge of the finished scarf isn’t very large. I wouldn’t have had the patience to do a knitted picot edge on a large shawl.

Back to the Orenburg shawl. It’s fiddly but interesting.

Turned Two Corners of Orenburg Shawl

Yay! I finally started the body of the shawl. The photo above shows the edging. I knitted 34 repeats of the edging pattern, turned the first corner with short rows (half a repeat), picked up 273 stitches along the edge, picked up the cast-on stitches, turned the second corner, and started the body of the shawl. The cable of my circular 2.25mm needle feels rough. I suspect that it may have tiny breaks in the plastic. It’s an old Inox needle and I’d hate to have it fall apart while this shawl is on the needles. Fortunately, I have another circular needle this size.

This is the ill-fated Square Medallion Shawl that I began in April, 2010, in a linen thread that didn’t work out. The linen thread would probably have worked for a center out design, but it wasn’t elastic enough for picking up stitches from the edging. The pattern is the Square Medallion Shawl from The Gossamer Webs Design Collection: Three Orenburg Shawls to Knit.

Sometimes Things Don’t Work Out…

This is the square Orenburg shawl, moments before it was unraveled. It didn’t work out. See those deformed cats’ paws near the needle? That was the final straw. I finally faced the fact that this yarn, needle, and pattern were not a happy match.

The linen thread was working but not quite. It’s a little too slubby to knit up evenly. Sometimes I had to peel off 3-inch-long bits of unspun flax. I’m not sure the 2 mm nickel-plated Inox needle was such a good choice. It was a bit too slippery for me to knit fine yarn evenly and I think possibly it was a bit too small, although I did like the hole size in the swatches. The flip side is that if I were to have chosen a larger needle, the finished shawl would have been the size of a tablecloth. So either way there’s a trade-off. One thing’s for sure — I’m going to go back to my trusty, ancient aluminum-coated needles for my next attempt. You haven’t heard the last of this!

Shawl being unraveled with a ball-winder:

The former shawl, reduced to its elements. The linen is a nice yarn but better suited for fine weaving. NO, I am not going to look for a 32-dent reed for my table loom so that I can knit a bunch of napkins. This thread would work for a doily or tablecloth, preferably knit from the center outwards. The thread doesn’t have enough stretch for knitting off the edging selvedge.

The next possible substitute. I’ve had this yarn in my stash for about 15 years. It was an impulse buy in London on one of my first visits after I married an Englishman. Tonight I’ll cast on some stitches and see how the tension works with a 3 mm needle. Or maybe 2.5 mm.