Tuesday, August 17, 2010

Saroyan In Progress

I don't know about other knitters, but I suspect that they might do as I do when I go on vacation:  pack too many knitting projects.  I took 4 of them with me for a week, but ended up working only a little on 3 of them.  One was Braydon's sweater, another was a sock that I worked on during the flight.


The third was the Saroyan scarf.  I started it twice on vacation, trying to get a fabric that I liked.  The yarn I'm using is about a fingering, maybe a light-fingering, weight so I first tried a US #3/3.25 mm needle as I thought it would give me a nice drape.  However, it was too loose and the stitches were uneven.  I went down two needle sizes to a US #1/2.5mm needle, but it was too dense a fabric.  Today, now at home, I started again with a US #2/2.75mm needle and I'm liking the results so far.


I like the way this scarf is constructed.  You can use any weight of yarn, which is especially nice if you're trying to use up your stash.  The scarf is made up of three sections:  increase, straight and decrease.  You cast on with a needle that you find gives you the drape and fabric that you like.  Then, you work the 14-row repeat section until it's the width that you want.  Each of the repeats gives you a leaf border on one side.  Next, you work straight, and then work the decrease section equal to the length as the increase section.  You can see a schematic on the designer's website.  The pattern calls for worsted weight yarn, but there is no difficulty changing to a different weight.

The design is easy, but with enough of a pattern to keep me from getting bored.  The changing colors of the yarn keep me going, too.  The scarf will be getting progressively darker and darker in color.  A fun knit!

2 comments:

JelliDonut said...

I never get to all my vacation knitting, but that's better than running out of projects. Not that I would know what that's like since I ALWAYS take too many projects...

Anonymous said...

I'd love to make the Saroyan! Yours looks beautiful!

(I really enjoy Laurie King as well!)