So what colours to choose. I looked at the site with an open mind, unsure what I wanted. As soon as I arrived in the Double Knitting section I saw the Sirdar Crofter Dk wool and the gold - blue - brown - neutral colour way that was shown as the thumbnail image caught my eye, and it took me a while to identify which name it was. In case you're wondering it's called Lewis and the plain wool that I ordered is called Camel, also Sirdar.
With my order placed, I waited for it to arrive. And when it did I was in for a shock.
With the wool re-plumped, I couldn't help but notice how soft it was. Now what kind of scarf to knit.
I decided I wanted something "drapey" and not solid, but I also wanted something that would grow relatively quickly. I wanted something with a pattern, but not something so complicated that I'd need to keep referring to a pattern.
I decided on a simple pattern of six rows knit and the seventh with two stitches knitted together and then bringing the yarn around the needle, to ensure the 43 stitches I cast on remained there. The first stitch of every row was a slip stitch and that, I think gives the edge a nice crinkly effect.
I can tell you're impressed with my technical terms already!
I started with a large block of the plain Camel colour and was itching to start to use the pretty fair isle multi-coloured ball of Lewis. At 50g I had much less of this, so I knew I'd need to be careful. I also knew I didn't want uniform stripes, so when I added rows of the contrast I was careful not to overdo it.
My next question was how long to knit for. Well I decided on a practical approach, which didn't involve me wrapping the knitting still attached to the needles around my neck - ok that may have happened once or twice as well. I got out a scarf I enjoy wearing and measured that against the rug in our front room. I knew that I needed to carry on knitting for a while, but soon I wanted to check my progress.
So I carried on.
And eventually when I measured the scarf against the rug, and against my neck - it was scarf length!
I found this wool easy to knit with and often sat in front of the television clicking away, it was quite therapeutic and it's been a while since I've done a lot of knitting, so it was fun.
I haven't mastered the art of knitting and not tangling the wool, despite pulling the end from the middle of the ball of wool. So on a couple of occasions MOH was persuaded to unknot it all for me - he's more patient you see so is much better suited to this task. Left to my own devices after a bit of jiggling, pulling and wiggling (the wool, not me) I just cut it and then I stand a chance of untangling it, but it didn't come to that!
What I hadn't remembered was, that every time I swapped wool would mean a set of ends to sew in. With my scarf at it's full length and the majority of my 150g of wool used, I cast off and started to tackle those ends.
Look, this was how many:
Now, how to decorate my scarf. I know it's pretty as it is, but I wasn't done yet.
It was time for some French knitting, something I hadn't done since I was much younger.
With a couple of cords made, and a couple of buttons I made them into flowers. I have a felt poppy brooch and I've been wearing this on my scarf, so this was my inspiration.
I think they look great, what do you think?
I'm really pleased with my new scarf, and this cold weather can now hang around for a while!
This is a collaborative post with Cosy Wool, but all words and opinions are my own.