Dr. John Watson’s Scarf Pattern

I made this to see Game of Shadows at the theatre, but the movie had been out for at least a month so there weren’t very many people there to notice and nobody commented. 😦 I suppose they were too dumbstruck at the scarf’s awesomeness. Anyways, here’s the pattern I made up for it.

Yarn:

The scarf seems to use worsted weight in three colours, a heather brown,  light grey, and sky blue. I used the following:

1 skein Lion Brand’s Fishermen’s Choice in Natural brown

1 skein Hobby Lobby’s I Love This Yarn! in Medium Blue

1 skein Hobby Lobby’s I Love This Yarn! in Light Gray

Hobby Lobby sure comes up with imaginative names for colours, don’t they?

Needles:

US size 7, or whatever you think will get the most accurate gauge.

Pattern:

Step 1: Cast on 40 stitches in brown using your favourite method.

Step 2: Slip one stitch knit-wise, knit 1, purl 1, knit 1, purl 1 until end of row (single stitch ribbing)

Step 3: Repeat step 2 until you have 10 rows

Step 4: Switch to light grey and continue for 2 rows

Step 5: Change to blue and continue for 6 rows

Step 6: Switch back to light grey for 2 rows

Step 7: Change back to brown and knit 14 rows

Step 8: Repeat steps 4 through 7 until your desired length. I’m pretty sure that the original has 14 stripe repeats.

Step 9: When you are finished with the last stripe repeat, switch to brown and continue the ribbing pattern for 10 rows.

Step 10: Cast off

Then you have the tedious process of weaving in ends. Because this scarf is knitted in ribbing, the technique is a little different. Here’s a lovely how-to video for it. And you don’t need to weave in the end you have at the ends of your scarf. They can be left with the fringe.

After you finish that, it’s time to add the fringe. For each tassel I used four strands of one color, and each strand was about 8 inches long. This gets a little more than halved when put on the scarf. From what I can see of the order, it goes like this: Brown, blue, grey. Add the fringe on about every second to third row to keep it fanning out too much. If you don’t know how to add fringe, here’s a video.

Happy knitting!

Stockinette, stockinette, STOCKINETTE!!!!!

I think I’m about to explode. I unwisely chose large, simple projects to knit for my friends down south when I see them after Christmas. Unwise because they’re all knit with the stockinette stitch! What is driving me crazy the most though, is the Lord of the Rings scarf that I’m making.

It looks all fine and dandy, right? Well, after these first two bands of Elvish, it’s just plain knitting until the other end. Just. Plain. Stockinette. The worst part about it is that it’s knitted on the round, which means that there isn’t even the every other purl row to help dilute the monotony. But I’m persevering and determined to get it knitted, blocked, and fringed before December 27. (note: the picture was taken in October, it is now much longer)

Another thing strictly stockinette is the bags I’m working on. The finished one I am super happy with. It took me a long time to figure out what I was going to do, then test the pattern, and then finally complete it! At first, I didn’t even want to felt it. I mean, who would want to completely obliterate all signs of knitting? But then I felted a swatch or three, and I was hooked. But I did not know how to compensate for the extra shrinking that occurs to the height of the object during felting, so I asked around on the Ravelry group Felting is My Bag and the people on there gave me some wonderful suggestions, the one looked upon with most favor being needle felting the design on the flap rather than knitting it in before felting. Here’s a picture so you know what I’m talking about.

Well, you’re just going to have to tilt your head because apparently wordpress is “unable to save image edit.” Oh well. So yes, I have another one of these to do with a different symbol on its flap and I will be done with my Christmas knitting! It still seems like a whole lot to knit, though…