UPPER BORDER: 8 rows of moss stitch (using a needle one size smaller than the one used on the body of scarf)

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My first fancy knitting project! An act of daring. I barely know how to Tink, much less recognize problems that arise and how to fix them, so if I get deep into this and mess up, I may have to frog it. But I’m ready for a challenge, and this isn’t difficult, just a chore for my ailing attention span. And it’s pretty. Looks great with madelinetosh Whiskey Barrel.

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10-14-2020

I’m really loving how this is turning out. (Knock wood, don’t drop a stitch now!) The color is delicious, and the trellis-grid really shows it off. I think of barbed wire, old west, ghost town in the rain, etc., sometimes; other times it just feels cool and autumnal. Wish I could capture the color better on camera.

One complaint is how much it’s curling at the bottom. Had to pin heavy beads to it to keep it from getting in the way.

10-14-2020

Yeah. So. I messed up. About 5 inches into this thing, and my mind began to wander on one of the Row 4s. I heard myself say, “Nine…ten…” and came to a screeching halt. I tinked back a few stitches, and it worked out okay. Got to the end of the line, though, and I had one extra stitch. @#!$! Looking back, I found I’d only knit 4 instead of 5 way back at the start. Oh, and while I was checking that, ploop-ploop-ploop-ploop, four stitches made a run for it, leaping off the end of the needle. I caught them before they dug down into the sand like a sandcrab, but I have no idea if they were twisted right or not. Then I watched a video on tinking, figured out how to do it without twisting the stitch, and I sloooooowly undid about 70 stitches before redoing the row. I was afraid true disaster would become apparent with the next row--holes, twists, something--but it looked okay. Next Level Gray Hair: achieved.

10-18-2020

Have knit 8.5 sets of the eight-row repeat. Scarf is 9.5” tall and too wide. Hope it doesn’t eat all my yarn.

10-23-2020

It’s now 19”w x 14”h, and something went wonky a few rows back, but I can’t figure it out, and the count and alignment are currently correct, so I’m leaving it. It’s just that there was one stitch too few about four rows ago, and the last stitch was way too big and loose. I’m beginning to think I dropped an edge stitch without realizing it because it worked to just twist that slack up onto the needle like a stitch. We’ll see.

10-26-2020

Things remain stable. The scarf is now 19”W x 17”H. Still on my first skein.

11-09-2020

Okay, nevermind. There was a dropped stitch in my first attempt that I didn’t notice until I was many rows beyond it. That was what I thought I’d remedied in an earlier note. Nope. While I could pull Timmy back up the well, the family has since paved that well over and built a shopping center on top. I could partially frog it all, but I am BAD at that. I’d already decided I didn’t want it to be quite so big, if I was going to try to make two, and the edges were curling somethin’ fierce.

Long story short, I didn’t frog it but set it aside and have started a new one with two other skeins--alternating them this time, like I should have to begin with to avoid pooling (which had not yet happened but probably would with that scarf’s luck). The tricky part is that I decided to add a moss stitch border on all four sides to ease the curl. I couldn’t find a clear set of instructions on how to add stitches on the left and right, so I made it up, got out my trusty Excel, etc. What I’m making now is loads better, but it did turn out I didn’t map out a moss stitch side border but a single-rib border. Oh well. Looks good. I’m keeping it that way.

Oh yeah, I also used a smaller needle size this time (4.5mm instead of 5) and an even smaller needle for the bottom moss stitch border.

11-10-2020

Scarf is now 14”W x 6.5”H. Still wider than ideal for my intended recipient, but not quite as wide as I’d want for myself. We’ll see who gets it (should it survive).

11-12-2020

8.5” x 14” Is that Legal size? It’s bigger than Letter.

12-20-2020

Okay, started over AGAIN. I fixed a few mistakes on the second iteration, laddering back, tinking, etc. But when more problems kept popping up, I decided I would rather start over with an even narrower version, since this may be a gift for my sister’s boyfriend.

I cast on 45 stitches and came up with a 10-inch width, which may grow after blocking. Better. Still using the moss stitch border on the bottom and a ribbed edging on the sides to prevent curling. Alternating 2 skeins.

12-20-2020

Scarf is currently 7.75” x 10” after a day. Not much chance I’ll finish by Christmas, but I’ll see how far I get.

12-21-2020

12.75” x 10. I hate sharp needles. My index finger pad is killing me from all the times I’ve pushed a stitch off.

12-22-2020

17 inches long now, and the recipient is coming to exchange presents day after tomorrow. Hmm. Likely to be finished? NOOOOO. Sigh. I’ll keep going though.

12-23-2020

20” long

12-29-2020

24” long.

12-30-2020

29.5” long, and I switched from Clover Takumi 4mm bamboo needles to Chiagoo red lace metal needles for the last 2 pattern repeats (16 rows).

12-31-2020

33” long. I forgot to switch skeins one time, so there’s an extra-long strand of yarn going up the side now, but it’s too far for this exhausted knitter to frog back, so I’ll just disguise it after blocking somehow.

01-01-2021

37” long, about half finished. I have 108 grams of yarn left in the two skeins I am using for this project. That’s just a few grams shy of half, so, with luck, I can stop when I run out. (I have 4 more skeins but don’t want to dip into those or run the risk of a visible color line.)

In other news, I went back to do one bonus set of 8 rows for the night and wound up messing something up. I think I tinked a slipped stitch as if it were knit, but I couldn’t put it back the way it went. I improvised something and it is barely visible--looks like a purl over one lifted section instead of a knit now, but I was stupid this afternoon and decided not to put in lifelines for an hour or two, so I’d be undoing too much work to rip back and fix this.

01-02-2021

40.5”

01-03-2021

41.75” long, 34 diamonds tall.

01-09-2021

With a slight tug, this is 45” long. Production was delayed this week by an endless headache, the resuming of online school for my kids, and a bit of wrist pain. Plus, I had to unravel it back 5 rows to a lifeline today after dropping a few stitches.

01-10-2021

46.5” / 38 diamonds tall

01-11-2021

~51” tall / 41 diamonds tall

01-12-2021

55” long, based on 1.25” per 8-row repeat @ 43 repeats, plus 1.25” of moss stitch at the bottom. How much will this grow in blocking? I want it to be 72” long, when all is said and done, but my yarn skeins are pretty thin and flabby now. I have a few more skeins; I’m just reluctant to crack ‘em open, for some reason.

01-13-2021

45 repeats. 56.25” long. I think I’m going to try to get this to 68” before blocking, which is about 53 repeats plus the top and bottom moss stitch borders, so only about 8 more repeats. (Hoping this will stretch about 4” in blocking.) On the other hand, I may run out of yarn first. Depending on when that happens, I may or may not add on a bit of another skein.

01-16-2021

Took a few days off for a migraine, then spent more time today fixing a mistake* than I did creating new material, but I think I’m back on track. Added two 8-row sets, for a total of 47 (I think, not going to count) and about 59” long.

I knit a few rows and decided to ignore a slightly frayed bit of working yarn. It was just an inch or two long and this is 4-plied yarn, so half was still intact. I thought it would be swallowed and supported by the surrounding work, but it still stuck out, so I unraveled back to my lifeline and redid the work, this time cutting out the frayed bit and reconnecting the ends with a magic knot. Said magic knot was so big and prominent that I couldn’t hide it, even with several rows of knitting and a lot of poking/prying. So I frogged back to the lifeline again. This time, all the stitches tried to keep going beyond the lifeline, sinking into their purl collars and making it so I wasn’t sure I’d be able to get things back on the needle again. This is the point that all my cats came to sit right next to me, my son visited, and my food arrived. I almost threw it all away in a fit of panic, but I held out and managed to fix everything and keep going. The final (I hope) fix was to make the yarn ends “link elbows” and just knit double-stranded with the bent-back ends. If that makes any sense. Luckily, that did disappear as I knit and is now invisible.

01-19-2021

49 sets…

01-20-2021

51

01-21-2021

54 repeats and just a tiny meatball of yarn left from one skein. Still enough from the other to do the moss stitch bottom border. Do I stop? CAN I stop? I am going to name this The Sisyphus Scarf. Might as well be forever rolling a boulder up a mountain, as long as this is taking.

LATER:

I did stop! Just did 8 rows of moss stitch then bound off. Measuring it now (pre-blocked), just laid out on the floor, no stretching, it’s 8 inches wide (must have been stretching before?) and 64” long. Not as long as I would have expected, based on how I’ve been measuring all along. On the other hand, I’m using a metal tape measurer now, and before I was using an older fiberglass tape measurer from my sewing kit. I’ll have to compare them. But not until later. I’m tired. Blocking tomorrow?

01-23-2021

Blocking that thing took forever, and I’m still not happy with it. The lines aren’t straight enough. It’s still wet and pinned to the mats. Maybe I’ll fiddle more with it when I’ve rested.

Final size (while still pinned): 89.5” x 8.75” (It grew 25.5”???!)

Size after unpinning: 84” x 8.25”

It looked overstretched on the pins but looks good now, although I wish I’d run the wires between the ribbing and the main body so the ribs didn’t stretch out.

Overall, quite happy with it, though!