Me-Made-May 2019 - Brigitte Scarf

I went away for the weekend, so I'm catching up with blog posts now I am back with my laptop again.

Day 3 of Me-Made-May I wore my Brigitte Scarf. A little head scarf that I made very shortly after I got my Tilly and the Buttons book (it's a Tilly and the Buttons pattern suprise suprise! ;) ) and it is the first pattern in there and brilliant for new beginners. It is also on her website as a tutorial, so follow the link above if you want to find out more.

I did this pattern just as a little something to keep my fingers busy before deciding what the next big sew was going to be. The fabric was from a scrap bin in a fabric shop near to my LYS, and I thought that the blue with little birds in flight was lovely. It seemed the perfect thing to make with it. The Brigitte scarf itself is very versatile as well. I have worn it in so many ways since I made it and I really do love it.

The fabric scrap wasn't long enough to make a scarf the exact same length as the pattern says, but I made one as long as I could out of the fabric I had. Fortunately I have a small head so there wasn't going to be many problems.

I wore this on the train journey up to London for the weekend and it helpfully kept my hair out of my eyes - and I have a lot of it!

Unfortunately I don't have a close up photo of the scarf, so you cannot see the stitching, but I did make some changes the following time that I made this pattern. This particular scarf when I turned the scarf the right side out, I ran a length of top stitching along the edge with the hole in it. It looks fine and when wearing the scarf it isn't noticeable, but for some reason it bugged me. I have a basic sewing machine, so I don't have any of the snazzy top stitch settings that some do, which would have finished the edge of this scarf off beautifully.

I did make a second Brigitte scarf, which you will probably see later on in the month, but for that one I hand stitched the hole closed in a way that hides the stitching from the outside, which I feel makes it so much better. But I am happy with this one! I will leave you with the picture from my Instagram stories for day 3, I also was wearing my Margot Pyjamas, well, because they are my pyjamas! ;)

Two-Tone Scarf

It's been a while since I last posted, with going away for the christmas holidays and the getting back to normal life afterwards. But! I did manage to get a few projects done!

This twin tone scarf has been something I have wanted to make for a little while. The scarf is knitted on a circular needle, and involved a tubular cast on, and an odd little way of knitting it, to get the effect of one colour one side and a different colour the other.

The pattern was another one that I had in my "Bumper Book Of Knitting" the book gave instructions on how to tubular cast on, as well as cast off. But I will admit I found the book instructions for casting off very hard. I did find a handy tutorial on Purl Soho, which explained that really it is Kitchener stitch, which I have used for sock toes, so all was well.

I did mess up the cast off a little bit, and will have to finally try blocking to get the scarf looking its best, but overall I'm pleased with it. It did keep me nice and warm on our family holiday to Germany!

Birthday Scarf

Recently it was a good friend's birthday, and I had nothing on the needles and was feeling the itch to get knitting again.

So I made this chunky ripple-y rib scarf, it's a pattern that I have used for three other scarfs so far, and it is great!

The pattern itself is from the blog The Wool Nest and the very first scarf I made with it, I followed the pattern using similar yarn to the one used on the blog and created a very similar scarf for Mr M (one of the first things I knitted for him).

For this scarf I took a trip to the small wool and fabric shop on the high street and just went searching for some nice chunky wool. What I ended up with was the Hayfield Chunky Tweed, one in a light blue and another in dark blue. The tweed style of them gives little hints of colour here and there and I love it.

The scarf is a rib with a twist and it makes a lovely scarf that I would recommend for anyone. It has now been posted off to it's new home, where I hope it will have a happy and loved life!

Cozied Up

And just in time for winter it's finished!

I had started this scarf a while ago when I made one for Mr M, which you can have a look at here, along with the pattern.

I made this one with the yarn that I had leftover from making Mr M's football scarf, and thought I would make one for me, being a WRU supporter I took advantage of the colours being the same!

Now it is finished just in time to snuggle up for the winter, although we do look a little like tweedledee and tweedledum when we are both wearing them, but oh well...

In other news, my friend Slade has a blog called All About That Space, which, as the name suggests, is, all about Space! So if you want to catch up with the goings on in the sky, or just want to have a little read, go check it out.

Holidays...

I am very sorry for the lack of posting in the past three weeks. I had got romantic ideas that when I went to Wales for two weeks I would be able to finish loads of projects, revise for my upcoming exams, and manage to fit it all in around working on the Talyllyn Railway.

Obviously none of that actually happened. I worked on the railway most days, did minimal revision and hardly any making. But we'll try and get back on top of all of that.

I did start another scarf just like the one I did before (Striped Scarf). I made this one with the left over wool I had from the one the Mr M asked me to make. Whilst I'm not a football person, it did just happen to be the colours of the Welsh Rugby Union team! The pattern for which I've now put up on Ravelry so you can download it as a free PDF pattern here, but you can always refer back to the original post on the blog here for how to do the fiddly bits.

Sadly the lovely leg warmers that I promised are still a work in progress, but they will be up soon! I did take them to wales with me, but about two rounds were knitted of them... I know I need to get a move on.

The polka dot knickers also have not made any more progress, I didn't really feel up to taking my sewing machine with me.

In other news I have started bullet journaling.  There is a lot of cool things going on with bullet journaling and it has become really really popular over in the states, but going back and looking at the original website, it is actually a really useful tool when used properly, to help people organise themselves, but also be able to become more productive by writing down thoughts, and things that need to be done. Once those things have been written down the brain isn't struggling to remember everything that needs to be done, giving you a chance to properly focus on the task in hand.
There is a really interesting post about it here, it also mentions attention deficit traits, and gives a fair bit of food for thought.

There is also a section on that website for getting started. One of the lovely things about it, is that you can be as creative or as minimal as you like. You can use whatever you have around you to get started, you just need a notebook and a pen. I've just got a notebook I picked up from the doctor who experience in Cardiff, and a load of coloured pens. What you make of the journal is completely your own, and sometimes beautiful things can come out of it.

Shells and Chains Crochet Snood

Recently I decided to try out a new crochet stitch, and to use up some of my sneaky yarn stash, which is getting increasingly bigger!

Foundation chain with stitch markers
to help keep count

So I came across the shell and chains pattern and it is a crochet pattern with shells, but is not as tight, and a bit more hole-y then the normal shells pattern. I used a chunky and variegated yarn from my stash, as it looked the nicest to make a snood out of. Although from this experience I don't think that a variegated yarn is the best for this pattern!

I started off with a chunky yarn and a 6.5mm hook, but this pattern can be done with any yarn and the appropriately sized hook.

The foundation chain should have a multiple of 6 chains and then another two.
I have chained 50 (8 x 6, + 2), this gave me a snood which is 125cm long which I have sewn together at the ends to create the snoodness.

Row 1 Complete

Here is the pattern:


Chain 50

Row 1: 1 dc in 2nd ch from hook, *miss next 2 ch, 1dc, (1tr, 1ch, 1tr, 1ch, 1tr) in next ch, repeat from * to the end of the row then turn.

Row 2: 4ch, 1tr in first stitch (The 4ch counts as one treble crochet and one chain), miss next tr, 1dc in next tr (this is the centre tr of the shell), *(1tr, 1ch, 1tr, 1ch, 1tr) in the next dc - between the shells - miss next tr, 1dc in centre tr, repeat from * and end with (1tr, 1ch, 1tr) in the last dc and turn.

Note: I found when chaining 4 for the second row it helped to keep a stitch marker in the third chain, which acts as the first treble, then I know without confusion where to end the third row!

Stitch marker in third chain

Row 3: 1ch (this doesn't count as a stitch!), 1dc in first tr, *(1tr, 1ch, 1tr, 1ch, 1tr) in the next dc, miss the next tr, 1dc in next tr, repeat from * until end, once the last dc has been made, 4ch for the next row.

Repeat rows 2 and 3 continuing the pattern.

For my snood I used a whole 200g ball of chunky wool, but the work measured 125cm (49 in), which is plenty long enough for a snuggly snood for a woman. By repeating row 2 and 3 you can create the snood as small or as large as you wish.

Once the snood is to length, cut a large tail from the ball, and pass it through the last remaining loop to fasten the work. Use this long tail to sew the two ends of the snood together, or if you wish make the pattern long enough to make into a scarf, then you can keep the nice scalloped edge you have created.

Finished Snood

Sewing the ends together

From my experience making this snood, I do not think that using a variegated chunky yarn is really the best way of bringing out the shape of the pattern, this I think would be done much better by using a thinner plain yarn, like double knit, and perhaps even changing colours each row. But we live and we learn!

Striped Scarf

Mr M in his scarf

A little while ago, Mr M asked me to make him a scarf for his football team. So I set about finding the right wool, and thinking about how to actually make the scarf.

I decided on using double knit wool, so the scarf wouldn't be too thick, and I used a single rib stitch. The end result was a nice scarf with the desired effect. Bellow is the pattern.

In the pattern there is an interesting finish to the edge of the scarf (sl 1 pwise wyif), this gives a smooth and neat edge to the scarf, I tend to use this when I need to create something in which the edges are most likely to be seen. The abbreviations here can be looked up in the abbreviations page in the side bar.

Here is what it actually means:
So the k1, p1 stitch is done until there is only one stitch left in the row, then like you would if you were doing a purl stitch, bring the yarn to the front of the needle. Then put the needle through the front of the stitch (like a purl) and slip the stitch from the right needle onto the left, and there you have finished the row! The stitch will be the first to be knitted on the next row, so it does not need to be worried about.

Yarn in front of needle

Needle through front of stitch

Finished row

Pattern:
Size 7 and size 9 needles (UK)
200g of DK wool
100g of colour A
100g of colour B

With size 7 needles cast on 50 sts with colour A

Row 1: (K1, P1) to last st, sl 1 pwise wyif.
Repeat row 1 for three more rows, change to size 9 needles.

Row 5: (K1, P1) to last st, sl 1 pwise wyif.
Repeat row 5 until you have 28 rows in colour A,

Switch to colour B and knit 24 rows of:
(K1, P1) to last st, sl 1 pwise wyif.

Repeat knitting stripes of 24 rows until you have 21 stripes

On the last stripe, when row 24 has been reached, switch to size 7 needles.
Knit four more rows of:
(K1, P1) to last st, sl 1 pwise wyif.

Cast off.

Tassels:
Tassels are optional in this pattern but I have included them on the scarf for Mr M, so this is how I've made them.

I started off with the two ends of the remaining yarn. In my tassels I've used both colours, but you can use only one colour if you wish, but you will have to wrap the yarn twice as much to get the same amount of tassels. I wrapped the yarn twice around my hand, cut it off the ball at the bottom, then along the same place as the ends, cut one side of the loops.

When wrapping the yarn you can wrap it around anything that has two straight edges if you don't wish to use your hand. By using something else you will be able to vary the size of tassel you make and if you are making multiple tassels then you will be able to ensure they are all the same size.

Now you should have four longish lengths of yarn, which are folded in half. With the top end of the tassel (the fold) pull it through a stitch (but not all the way) on the very edge of the scarf at the end. Once you have pulled the tassel part way through the stitch you will have a small loop on one side of the scarf and the tails on the other. Pull the tails through the loop and pull the tails so they tighten the loop around that bottom stitch. Now the tassel is attached.

On my scarf I have made 13 tassels and tried to equally space them along the bottom of the scarf, although if you made 25 tassels you would be able to place them at every other stitch along the bottom of the scarf. But the number of tassels and where you attach them is entirely down to your preference.