Thursday, December 18, 2008

Noro...no...Mistake Rib...no...My Own Thang

All this talk about the 2-row Noro scarf has made me itch, I tell you, simply ITCH to knit one. The only obstacles to my knitting one are:

PRICE...$11.00 / skein mulitplied by 4 equals $44.00. Just can't do that right now.
CHRISTMAS...coming soon and still no decorations, presents, cookies, or even Ho Ho Ho-ness
WORK...swamped at home and at work with bookwork, year end crap, er, work
YARN IN STASH...doesn't match requirements.

So, alternatively, I decided to knit a scarf using Queensland Collection Uruguay Chunky in periwinkle. It's a lovely color and very soft and squishy AND I picked it up at a closeout for $4.00 a skein!

My initial plan was to knit a Mistake Rib scarf. I thought, "I remember how to do that! I've seen how on some blog or the other and I'm a bright girl who can figure things out. Easy Peasy." So I threw all 4 skeins and a set of size 13 US needles in a bag and took off for a long weekend away with Farmboy.

Well, don't you know, I couldn't for the life of me figure out a mistake rib. Not that I didn't try. I had all kinds of interesting patterns going but none of them seemed right. All were just....wrong.

Earlier this fall, I had an opportunity to demonstrate spinning at an alpaca farm for National Alpaca Days and there was plenty of time for conversation with my other demonstrators. The closest one was a woman who crocheted and felted luxury fibers creating some beautifull warm and totally sensuous garments. We talked about the phenomenon of yarn "telling" you what it wanted. We had both experienced making something and either hating it or having a "wrong" feeling. So we would rip it out and wait for the right project. When we found it, it was such a different experience. It looked better, the process went better and it felt better.

So, this weekend, I realized my gorgeous purpley yarn was telling me it didn't want to be a Mistake Rib. It wanted to pretend to be a Noro 2 row scarf. Huh.

So I cast on 18 or 20 stitches (can't remember) and proceeded to k1p1 my way through 4 skeins, slipping the first stitch of each row purlwise.

Lovely, long, squishy, sensuous, and WARM! It was totally what that yarn wanted to be. It will make someone's neck warm and feel sexy. I love it when things work out.

But I'm still looking for Noro Silk Garden on sale.

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