Knitting - Lessons Learned (Maybe)

A friend of mine is extremely precise in everything she does. She checks and double checks to make sure she has the right materials and processes before she starts anything. I could learn from her.

I found a pattern on Ravelry for a scarf that I wanted to make as a Christmas gift. It was knit in lace weight yarn which I have plenty of since I ordered a sampler package from Knitpicks. I picked a color I though would be good (a baby alpaca/silk blend), cast on and started knitting. At the end of the first repeat I looked at what I had knitted and was not at all satisfied with the result.

Time to rip it out and pick another yarn, this time a merino with more loft than the alpaca. I finished the swatch and again it looked terrible.

I ripped it out again and moved up to a fingering yarn. I had some sock yarn leftover that I thought would be enough to make a scarf. Again after the first repeat I still wasn't satisfied with the result. It was better, but still didn't look right. At this point I stretched the fabric and compared it closely with the photo in the pattern.

Aha! The problem was that my yarnovers didn't twist. It totally changed the look of the fabric. So once again I ripped it all out and pulled out my trusty Readers Digest Guide to Needlework. It stays on the table beside my bed, so I can refer to it when I have a how-to question. I was working yarnovers for a purl lace, exactly backwards of what they should have been.

Last time was a charm. It looks, well, like it's supposed to look. When I got about halfway through the scarf, I laid down the knitting needles and read the size. My short blue needles weren't size eight, they were size ten. The lace weight yarns probably would have worked perfectly with the proper size needle.