Ruffled Fancy Scarf - Finished Product!

Following on from my last entry about what I'm currently knitting, behold the finished ruffle scarf!

I'm delighted with how it came out and I've actually been wearing it every day since I finished it. As I said before, the yarn caught my eye as I was shopping for supplies to make a scarf for my godmother, and being a total sucker for anything that's multicoloured, I couldn't resist buying a ball of it. 

There was a sample scarf knitted up with this yarn in the shop, and I thought it looked similar to the Rico Loopy yarn only slightly frillier. However, when it came to actually knitting with the stuff it turned out to have a few differences. Firstly, I didn't find it quite as easy to knit with as the Loopy. Also there were no instructions on the yarn wrapper band, which was a bit of a pain in the arse. The only thing it said was to use a 5mm needle. Now, if you decide to try knitting with this yarn I would strongly recommend that you DO NOT use a 5mm needle - it's much too skinny, the loops can come off the end of it (yes, this happened to me). I used the same 8mm one that I used on the Loopy scarf and found it worked much better.

On the band of the Loopy wool, it shows that you knit the scarf up by knitting into one of the 'thicker' holes on the top edge, skipping a 'thicker' hole and then knitting the following 'thicker' hole (as illustrated by this incredibly crappy MS Paint diagram):

So anyhoo, I figured that you'd knit the Krystal scarf in pretty much the same way as you'd do the loopy one (considering the lack of instructions on the band, it was pretty much trial and error). All was going well until I started to get to the end of the ball of yarn and realised that the scarf was only about a foot long, and unless you've got a neck like a Barbie doll, it's not going to be much use as a scarf. I'll admit the air turned blue for a moment, but I took a deep breath, counted to ten, and logged on to YouTube to see was there any joy to be had there. 

I couldn't find any videos to help me, however after a bit of googling I discovered that unlike the Loopy scarf where you'd do "knit, skip, knit, skip, etc" like in the diagram above, you actually knit into all the thicker bordered holes. Once I learned that, I unraveled the scarf and started again, thankfully it knits up pretty quickly once you've figured out how to make the damn thing!

 

The above picture is a closer view of the yarn, and as you can see it's beautiful! My favourite part is where the yellowy-gold transitions into the pink; it reminds me of a sunset. 

Overall, I really enjoyed knitting this scarf, despite the few hiccups at the start. Also, the range of colours in the other yarns they have is gorgeous, so I'd be surprised if I don't knit another one. It took me about an hour of leisurely knitting to finish it and I'm very happy with the end result, it's lovely and soft and goes with a variety of my outfits.

I found out later that there's actually a pattern booklet that is supposed to come with the yarn (it's free) and you just take one from the shop, however I think that it would be much easier if the manufacturer put the basic instructions on the wool band, and also maybe a link to where you can download the pattern from their website because I can't imagine I'm the only person who hasn't realised that the pattern comes separately. (Or maybe I am...........that's embarrassing!!)

Wool from: Springwools

Needles from:  my personal stash :-)

Ruffled Fancy Scarf

Just a quick update on one of the things I'm currently knitting. I was out shopping (at Springwools) for some wool for a scarf for my godmother the other day when my beady eyes fell upon this gorgeous yarn! 

I've never knitted with it before, but from what I can see it's very similar to the Rico Loopy yarn, but a bit thinner. I'm a complete sucker for anything brightly coloured or shiny, so naturally my eye was drawn to this. There were a huge variety of colours on offer, but I went for this one because I loved the way the colours transitioned into one another (especially the gold into the pink; it reminds me of a sunset!).

I've started the scarf (a little gift from me, to me) and at the point of writing this I've knitted about 10 inches or so.

I'll post an updated entry when it's done, along with some pictures of the finished scarf and my thoughts on the wool and the knitting process.

Loopy Scarf

I knitted this one for my Mum last Mother's day (I also did one in a different colour for my mum in law, but I haven't got a picture of it). I had been browsing around YouTube looking at various knitting videos and I saw a video tutorial for this scarf. I love the look of the scarf, and figured it would be something both my mum and my husband's mum would get a lot of use out of. Most importantly (given that it was about ten days til Mother's Day) it looked like a project that would knit up quickly!

Once you get the hang of which loop to knit into, the scarf is nice and easy to make. The yarn is called Rico Loopy and each ball makes one scarf, so there was no need to do up gauge swatches to work out how much wool would be needed. When you look at the wool when it's in the ball, it's hard to imagine what the finished product will look like. (Obviously aside from the picture on the label.) Here's the wool:

One thing I'd recommend you get, especially if you need to set your knitting down at any stage (like to answer the phone, get tea or answer a call of nature) is a stitch holder. The loops make quite large stitches and it's very easy for the stitches to slip off either end of the needle. This happened to me a couple of times and it's a nightmare trying to pick them back up again. If you can't get your hands on a stitch holder, thread a piece of chunky yarn through all your stitches and tie the ends in a loose bow - it'll do the same job as the stitch holder but it'll take slightly longer to put in and take out.

I think the scarves took me two to three hours each to knit. I'd had dinner, watched tv, etc while I was making them so I reckon if you actually sat down and just focused on it, you'd have a scarf knitted in under 90 minutes. I was very pleased with how they turned out, and I'd definitely make one again. 

Wool and needles from: Springwools

Video tutorial from: Black Sheep Wools

Loom Knit Wrap

I knitted this for my Mum for Christmas. I mentioned in a previous post that I bought a set of circular looms on eBay, and I used the biggest one to knit this. Not wanting to toot my own horn but it looks way nicer in real life than it does in the picture.

The looms are kind of funny sizes, the smallest one would knit a hat to suit a small newborn, or a preemie. The second smallest would do for a toddler or small child. The second largest one would do for an adult, but as for the biggest one, I don't know what sort of hat you'd be knitting on it. Maybe one for an elephant or something - it's massive. 

This scarf/wrap is about the same dimensions as a pashmina. There are three different types of wool in the scarf, the main wool is a plain black chunky wool, and then I also used Firefly wool at the same time to incorporate some interesting colour and texture. Every ten rows, I would weave in a row of furry wool, and I also had a row of furry wool at the start and at the end.

All in all this took me about 2 weeks to knit, it would probably have been quicker but I had several other Christmas present projects on the go at the same time. I'm seriously considering knitting one for myself also, because it's lovely and warm and the furry wool is really soft!

Wool from: Springwools

Loom from: eBay