Wednesday, January 07, 2009

Huckleberry Ascot Completed

In spite of the craziness and required overtime at work, I've been able to squeak in a LITTLE knitting. This is my latest project - the Huckleberry Ascot from the Winter 2007 Holiday issue of Interweave Knits. I am showing a shot here with the left side bobble-free and the right side with the bobbles so you can see how it looks both ways in case you don't like bobbles.

My friend Laura kindly gave me a gift certificate to The Studio, so I bought the most luxurious yarn called Shi Bui which is DK weight Baby Alpaca. That is what I made the Huckleberry scarf with - the colorway is 229 which is a rich purple-burgandy.

Though the time for gift giving is now officially over, it's good to keep this project in mind if you ever need a quick gift. I knit it up in one week - a very hectic frantic week at that. Many faster knitters could probably whip it up in a couple of days. The ascot uses short rows and you pick up the wraps. That taught me a new technique because I'd never picked up wraps before. Carol showed me how to do it. Also, the optional bobbles on the ends of the scarf were fun.


Just to note though, instead of doing 8 repeats of the shortrow to create the flaired ends, I did only 6 and also instead of picking up 120 stitches on each end I picked up only 48. This made the scarf less bulky at my neck, and also saved yarn. If you knit it "as written" it uses a bit MORE than the 225 yards, causing you to have to buy a second skein to finish. But if you do the abbreviated version I did, you use slightly less than one whole skein.

5 comments:

Ellen Bloom said...

Very attractive scarf! I'm beginning to like shorter, less fussy scarves. The color is great on you.

Debi said...

Cute!

Nice to see you and happy new year Chelle!

Laura said...

Oh! Aren't you adorable! I'm so glad you did something this cool with your certificate! But then, there wasn't any doubt you'd find something great. :)

Carol said...

This turned out so beautifully. Great job.

Now I want to do one but it would have to be for someone else because I cannot stand to have anything like that aroung my neck. I must have been hung in a previous life. I can't even stand a mock turle neck.

Maria E. Tovar said...

It is a beautiful scarf and you did a wonderful job. Congratulations. That is my favorite color.