Ruffles for Lisa Progress

Here are some pics of the Ruffles for Lisa scarf.  I'm not a very fast knitter, but I hold my own pretty well.  Even so, these 900+ stitches are taking about 45 minutes per row.  Woof!   The needles are Harmony Wood from Knit Picks, on loan from the magnificent Miss Colleen, intrepid assistant and dear friend.  (Hers have a 40" cable, and my longest was a 32".) 

I can't spread it out to confirm, but my knitting math says the short side is about 4 feet, and the long side is about 6 feet, so it should be nice and ruffly.  (Ruffles are made by increasing the number of stitches exponentially so that the full part of the ruffle is two to 5 or 6 times the length of the cast on.)

Why ruffles?  And a little open work?  I was looking for something simple and ruffly because each fold of fabric traps more air, and the trapped air makes any garment warmer.  Lisa likes her scarves short and narrow, so getting one to be short, narrow, and warm is a good trick.  To top it off, the yarn she feel in love with was the sock yarn.  Light, thin yarns are not going to trap as much air as a bulky.  So, the magic of ruffles comes into play.

I think I'm about another 25 rows away from finished, and the sample above represents about 20.  I'm aiming for the finished project to be about 5 inches wide.  25 more rows only represents about 19 more hours knitting, plus weaving in time for the ends.  Only.  This is when I wish I were a faster knitter.  I really want to get this off the needles and take a look!

Ruffles for Lisa

I cast on a scarf for my BFF Lisa last night.  I'm using Crazyfoot from Mountain Colors Yarn, which is a nice sock yarn that comes in all the beautiful Mountain Colors colorways. 

I decided to work the scarf the long way, and to make it ruffle a bit from right to left.  I'm also working in some open stitches, to give it a bit of lace without becoming frothy.  These wonderful colorways lend themselves to simpler stitch work, as the really complicated stuff sometimes can get swallowed up in the highlights and shadows of the colors.  (The color sample above isn't Crazyfoot, it's Moguls. FYI.)

At first I was going to make this yarn into the Romantic Ruffle Scarf from yesterday's post, but alas, I didn't like the yarn and pattern together.  I wanted more of a vertical emphasis.  So that scarf will still be made, in a solid fern green with a thin chocolate edge.  This one will be something else entirely.

The only tricky part so far is laying hands on a really long size 6 circular needle.  The longest I have is a 29", and after a few phone calls to shops and friends, I finally found a 40".  A 48-54" scarf on a shorter needle is fine, but with subtle ruffles, one edge is going to be very long (like 1200 stitches or more.  I started with 250, and it's already a little busy!)  I hope they all fit!

I'm doing simple stitches, a slight ruffled effect, with a little openwork. Keeping it simple, I hope to avoid the colorway and the pattern competing for attention.  In a perfect world, it will make one unified, attractive piece.  I'll share pics as there is something to see, and the pattern when I'm finished tinkering with it.  Anyone else using Mountain Colors right now?