Sunday, August 27, 2006

Multidirectional Diagonal Scarf ...

... or how I learned about short rows!



At my LYS, I fell in love with this yarn - Wool in the Woods Southern Rose, Color: Poppy Patch, content: 55% Merino/45% Wool. I asked the knitters there that day what I could make with such yarn and they handed me the Multidirectional Diagonal Scarf pattern. The picture is what has been done to date. What it doesn't show is the start, stop, start again as I went through my first short row learning experience!

I had done three triangular sections and was halfway through the fourth when I realized I was making a pentagon. Lesson Learned: If you add an extra row of straight knitting at the end of each segment, you will have a pentagon shape at the end of the fifth section!

I did the only logical thing, I frogged* the entire thing and set the yarn aside, really determined to forget it and find another pattern for this great color. (* generally used by crocheters, 'frog' is a term associated with taking apart all progress on a yarn item ~~ "Rip It Rip It Rip It")

Lesson Learned: Yarn and patterns will not be forgotten nor discarded that easily! I am obviously a glutton for punishment because I heard the siren song calling me back to the pattern and the yarn and a new try.

Pictured is the progress. The scarf will be finished in ample time to be given as a Christmas Gift and I have learned the short row technique - which will be very useful when I try my first hedgehog sometime soon!

2 comments:

Dorothy Neville said...

knitters use Frog also. And Tink, but I am not sure of subtle distinctions. Is tinking something you do stitch by stitch and frogging means undoing whole big sections (or the whole thing)? That's seems to be the way the terms are commonly used in blogland. (took me a long while before I realised how tink was a pun.)

I haven't used it, but I've seen scarves in that pattern and it makes a nice scarf. your knitting is coming along! You'll be making a hedgehog in no time.

Dorothy said...

Pretty scarf. I haven't mastered the short row as yet. I still get holes and they drive me crazy. I can't stop noticing them.

Pretty funny to have two different Dorothy's commenting one after the other. :D