Back at the Computer

Ah yes...I am still alive...let's see what are my excuses for not blogging since early July ... hmmm... vacation... heat... computer problems... administrative c*$p... Guild stuff... all those little things that should only take a moment and end up sucking up the day...

Enough of that. I am back on track. I have been doing some weaving, knitting and artistic stuff and things have been completed.

As a start I have finished knitting my fringed seed stitch scarf - this is the one I was working while sailing on the Napa River.

Hard to believe, but it is August and this is only my third knitting project. [Well...not counting those I-cords...] I do like how this scarf came out. I may even wear it when it gets a bit cooler. It's quite long - about ninety inches with fringe and very soft. Looks nice swung around the neck and down the sides.

The yarn is that 60% cotton 40% modal from Knitpicks. I took four balls put them into two skeins and dyed the skeins with leftover dye from dye day. Although I used the same colors on both they turned out to have a high value contrast. You can see a bit of the higher value contrast stripe near the top. I think the difference in value contrast was due to some grey color that I used on one skein but not the other. I forget what it was called. Perhaps the Dye Master will remember. The seed stitch was a good one for me...easy to remember where I was but complex enough to make me pay attention. Probably a good one good for keeping 'Al' away.

I opted for fringe down the sides to add some visual interest. This is how it was looking without the fringe - kinda boring. I have noticed a number of people trying to figure out how I got fringe all the way around the scarf. It is quite easy. The fringe on the long sides is done by not chaining off the last three stitches on each side of the last row and allowing them to unravel. For safety I tied the loops in a square knot in case the dogs got hold of the scarf. The fringe on each end had to be added on. I then evened off the fringe and unplied the yarn making fringe softer and fuller.