Scarves - Early Handspun and Alpaca Rescued

Early Hand dyed, Handspun, and Navajo-plied
I kettle dyed the merino roving with russet and blue dye. The yarn makes a space-dyed, sort-of striping pattern. I am knitting a double moss stitch scarf with the yarn, It is a very smooth yarn and almost feels like cotton. It is light and springy, but has the wonderful properties of wool. The scarf is nice and flat. For this scarf, I used a US 4 needle. Finished off the edges with a single crochet edge (to help compensate for less than perfectly consistent yarn.)






How to knit the scarf (updated 29 Dec 2007):
Cast on a multple of 4+2. First and last stitches will be edge stitches. (I usually use a longtail cast on.)

Row 1: Slip 1 edge stitch knitwise, K2, P2 across, K last stitch.
Row 2: Slip 1 edge stitch purlwise, K2, P2 across, P last stitch.

Row 3: Slip 1 edge stitch knitwise, P2, K2 across, K last stitch.
Row 4: Slip 1 edge stitch purlwise, P2, K2 across, P last stitch.

Repeat rows 1-4 until length you want it.

Cast off: I prefer an EZ sewn cast off.


Ahhhh, much better. Color Revisited.
This very labor intensive scarf (alpaca yarn I hand warped, hand dyed, then knit - but gawd-awful color).

Scarf info:
Palindrome scarf. Very cool, free pattern. This reversible scarf knit up very fast. Be forewarned, this reversible cable pulls in A LOT. So, use bigger-than-called-for needles so the scarf is not too heavy. I did not! Combined with the fact that it's alpaca and heavy, this will be a scarf for only very cold weather, as it is VERY warm!

The self striping yarn was my first test of creating self striping yarn (see how to instructions here.) When I made the yarn, the colors were clear, but there was too much value difference for my taste between the yellow and the blues, so I overdyed it with grey, which gave it a very muddy look. Yeach.

Red comes to the rescue!


After a dunk and soak and cook in red:




Thank goodness for the miracle of Jacquard acid dyes!