Gift #3
Posted by limedragon | Filed under accessories, knitting
Here is the last of the gifts I made for my recommendation letter writers!
This one was a bit of a toughie. I hadn’t seen the person in several years and faintly remembered that she favored darkish colors. I went through several boxes of stash until I finally settled on this beautiful teal yarn from Araucania.
Once I had the yarn selected, I knew Gathered Scarf (link below) would be the perfect pattern to show off the lovely, subtle variations in the color. Even so, I had to restart a few times. I didn’t care for the ruffly edge when starting with Stst and instead started with the garter st section. I also went down one needle size; while I was getting the drapey fabric recommended, I felt it was a bit too loose, especially considering scarves stretch over time. So it took another two tries to find a new stitch count that wasn’t too narrow or too wide.
Before washing, this scarf was about 5" wide and 50" long. I was worried that the scarf would be too short, but fortunately, a soak and gentle blocking helped, and the resulting scarf measures about 6" by 62".
About halfway through the scarf, I was browsing similar projects on Ravelry, and noticed that some people complained about the bias from the k2togs. Uh oh! I went back to check mine and it looked OK. I did change the Stst section to 8 rows instead of 6, which might have helped. I also think it may depend on the yarn used; the skewing might be more noticeable with a tightly twisted yarn. No doubt blocking also helped.
This simple scarf is really elegant and a fairly quick knit. I hope the recipient likes it! :)
Pattern: “Gathered Scarf” by Maryse Roudier, bag ‘n’ trash Size: 6″ by 62″ Yarn: Araucania Ranco, color 108 (teal) Needles: Takumi Clover US 3 & 6 (3.75 & 4 mm) circulars Started: March 6, 2009 Completed: March 13, 2009 (Ravel this project!)
Tags: araucania, blue, blue-green, gathered scarf, gift, ranco, scarf
April 10th, 2009 at 9:54 am
She will most certainly like it, and will also get compliments on it. It’s lovely.
April 10th, 2009 at 10:35 am
It turned out really well!
April 11th, 2009 at 11:00 am
All of your gifts are simply lovely! I especially like the scarf.
April 12th, 2009 at 10:34 pm
I like the way that turned out and the color is gorgeous.
April 13th, 2009 at 5:22 pm
gorgeous scarf! i just adore that shade of teal!
April 14th, 2009 at 10:02 am
The yarn is lovely and it looks so soft.
April 15th, 2009 at 5:26 pm
That is beautiful. Absolutely beautiful.
April 15th, 2009 at 5:27 pm
I like my scarf long generally. So the longer the better to fight off the cruelty of MN winter. Gorgeous scarf. I can see that pattern for handspun too.