Red-Does-Not-Go-Faster Scarf

Photo courtesy of Kris

I made another crochet scarf!  I promise, one day soon I'll be brave and move past scarves (though I still have one in progress), but this was a gift.  It was only two..  or three weeks late.  But it finally got to its new home.

The body of the scarf is a simple ribbed treble crochet (ie, a row of back loop treble [rs], then a row of front loop treble [ws]), and the ends are a funky stitch, the name of which I don't remember, but I think it looks and feels like a really really lush carpet, so for now I'll call it carpet stitch.  It sounds complicated (though it's not, I mean, seriously, I can even do it!), and I have no idea how to draw it, so I'll just explain it:

First Row:  tr in each stitch to end, do not turn

Second Row: ch 7, sl st into front loop of last tr, *ch 7, sl st into front loop of next tr, repeat from * to end, including top of turning chain of first row, do not turn

Third Row:  ch 3, *tr into back loop of next tr, repeat from * to end

You can vary the length of the chain for a different look, but because a treble stitch is three chain high, it will extend below the row you're stitching into.

I used an 8 ply wool because it came in a big enough ball that I knew I'd easily finish the scarf without having to buy more, but it was really really fine.  To make a thicker fabric I used two strands of wool at once.  For the first few rows, that was tricky, but I soon got the hang of it.

To finish, I did a border in crab stitch, one of the coolest simple edging stitch I know of.  Starting from the right hand side (yup, another r-l stitch) simply dc into each st.  Because you're working right to left, the wool from the ball is caught in the stitch and makes it look woven.  Really cool, especially if you have limited wool left, and once I worked out how to do it right (instructions are no substitute for experimentation), it worked pretty quickly.

So that's another project done!  Soon, I may start feeling accomplished!

Another Scarf

I bought some gorgeous wool at the Warehouse on the weekend, intending to use them to make some really really warm socks.  But when I crocheted a swatch to check the gauge, I found it was way out.  This made me sad, so I looked online at the Sean Sheep website that has patterns that are made specifically for their wool.  No luck - they didn't have my wool listed.  I did a google search for it too, and it didn't come up.  So now I'm making another scarf (see this post) and breaking my word to myself that I'd not start yet another project before any of the others are finished.  My excuse is that it looks like this:

And that's after an evening of crocheting (and a morning of undoing to get back to the tiny mistake that meant that it wouldn't sit straight.  I am using the scallop lace pattern from The Art of Crochet magazine that Mum bought me the first two issues of to get me started.  It's amazing how different it looks just because this wool is so much thicker and the hook I'm using is a 6mm instead of a 4mm.  I don't think it will take long to make a nice long scarf that I can actually wear!  Count me as a crochet fan now, move over knitting.