Copy-Cat

I've been looking at this great scarf/shawl pattern on Ravelry, and I thought I'd make one too. I don't actually have the pattern, though, I just studied finished scarves and faked it.


This is made from a cone of cashmere and silk from ColourMart. They pretty much just sell spun crack there as far as I can tell.


I dyed the yarn. Not too happy with the dye job, but I am overall very pleased with the scarf. That's some seriously nice yarn.

Ribbon Scarf Pattern

I have knitted several sideways scarves and the problem I run into is that one edge is more stretchy than the other and without violent blocking the scarf will take a cork screw shape.

Beginning and Ending:
To begin this scarf single crochet 200 stitches and knit into those, picking up two of the three loops of the crochet stitch. To finish the scarf bind off with a smaller sized crochet hook (about 2 sizes smaller).

Middle:
After you have the 200 crochet stitches established begin the body using US size 7 needles. You will need circular needles that are at least 32 inches long to accommodate the amount of stitches. Knit 3 rows. On the 4th row K1, YO3 to the end. On the 5th row drop all the YOs and knit each stitch. Repeat as many times as you want to. On my scarf I repeated 4 more times (a total of 5 repeats).

Finishing:
Wash, and pin. At this point weave in the ribbon. It's a bit of a pain to weave the ribbon in when the scarf is pinned, but this way you ensure that the tension of the ribbon works with the scarf. I made a knot at both ends of the scarf with the ribbon to help keep it in place. Occasionally the scarf will snag on something. Just hold the section taught and tug horizontally and vertically until the yarn has worked its way back into place.

Check here for the yarns I used. The brown yarn is an alpaca/wool blend called Valparaiso. The beautiful ribbon is Zingaro (color 1, I think). Both are from ArtFibers in SF.

Note to Self: Yarn Weights

Tex numbers:
Tex numbers indicating yarn weight are fractions. The first number indicates grams per 1 kilometer (or 1000 meters). The second number indicates the number of plies that make up the yarn. Thus, a Tex number of 50/2 tells us that the yarn is made of 2 strands that separately weigh 50 grams per 1000 meters.
I notice on my current favorite site, Colour Mart, they tend to just give the first Tex number. Seems reasonable. So, as they sell yarn (I'm making an educated guess here), 50 Tex is lace, 100 Tex is sport, 400 Tex is bulky. It seems that Tex numbers are not contingent upon fiber type.

NM numbers:
As with most things in the world, this is metric. 1 NM yields 1000 meters of yarn per kilogram (what ever those things mean). The first number in the fraction tells us the number of plies. A 1/4 NM yarn yields a yarn that has been spun 4 times longer (than a 1 NM yarn) using 1 kilogram of yarn. Same weight, different thickness; a 1/4 NM yarn will be much thinner than a 1 NM yarn at 4000 meters per kilogram. Unlike other yarn weights, the type of fiber is irrelevant.

Imperial System:
In this case the type of fiber must be known. What ever the fiber, "1" yields yards per pound. Of course different fibers will obviously give us different yardage amounts per pound. As with the Tex numbers the first number in the Imperial fraction tells us plies. The second number indicates how many times more the length is beyond the standard. (Remember, Standard in this case is fiber-specific). Finally, cotton seems to be reverse: count precedes plies.
In general (for wool) 2/10 is DK and 3/10 is Aran.

Whoa dang.