FO: Crime Scene Scarf
Feb. 4th, 2008 06:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
houseelfA non-knitting friend asked me to make a scarf that looks like crime scene tape as a Christmas present for her sister.
Yarn: Caron Simply Soft in Black and Lemonade. I am not fond of this yarn, but it's surprisingly hard to find bright yellow in my usual choices.
Needles: Addi Turbo #7 (4.5mm)
Gauge: 5 sts/inch
Pattern: http://robotclothes.com/projects_policetape.html, the more finished version, with alterations
I have several quibbles with this pattern, including that it gives one set of yarn requirements for two very different versions. Luckily, Simply Soft comes cheaply and in huge skeins. I got the big skeins and had a little yellow and lots of black left over.
My other main issue with it is that I like symmetry. Colorwork is ugly when you look at the back, so I definitely wanted to do the version that has a backing. However, I like symmetry. That version of the pattern calls for you to knit a flat scarf that's 29 stitches wide (14 + a folding stitch + 14), fold it in half, and seam it up one side. I wanted the edges to look the same. Because of that, I chose to CO 16 stitches instead - the 14 stitches called for by the pattern plus one on either side to slip so that seaming would be easier. I did two repeats of the words (CRIME SCENE DO NOT CROSS), with a little padding on either end, then bound off and knit an panel of the same size in plain yellow, seaming them together a little at a time.
Stockinette curls. We all know that, but wow is it obvious in this case. Long tubes of stockinette are also devilishly difficult to seam together evenly.
I decided to crochet the two pieces together rather than using mattress stitch. Crocheting with the wrong sides facing means that the edges are being squashed together in the position they ultimately need to be in, and that forcibly stops curling. It also leaves a decorative edging. This photo shows the end and a bit of one edge attached, and it's already starting to flatten out.
Seaming in progress. You start with a slip knot on the crochet hook so that you have a loop to work with. Then, you poke the hook through the slipped edge stitch on the front panel, through the slipped edge stitch on the other panel, grab the yarn, pull it back through, and pull the yarn through the loop on the hook. Easy.
Rather than trying to count rows as I knit the back of the scarf, I went back and forth between knitting and seaming until I got to the end.
The headache in doing this is that after going seven or so feet in one direction, it's hard to make it line up exactly on the way back. I could have split the ball of yellow yarn to do both sides at once, but that would have made the edges look different as I'd be working from the front on one side and the back on the other. Instead, I basted the second side as I went, using black yarn for contrast, and then picked the basting out a little at a time later on.
And here's a closeup of the finished scarf. Being acrylic, there wasn't much point in blocking it, so I didn't bother. Overall, I'm pleased with the way it turned out, and I'm shocked that the colorwork and the scarf itself lay as flat as they do.
Yarn: Caron Simply Soft in Black and Lemonade. I am not fond of this yarn, but it's surprisingly hard to find bright yellow in my usual choices.
Needles: Addi Turbo #7 (4.5mm)
Gauge: 5 sts/inch
Pattern: http://robotclothes.com/projects_policetape.html, the more finished version, with alterations
I have several quibbles with this pattern, including that it gives one set of yarn requirements for two very different versions. Luckily, Simply Soft comes cheaply and in huge skeins. I got the big skeins and had a little yellow and lots of black left over.
My other main issue with it is that I like symmetry. Colorwork is ugly when you look at the back, so I definitely wanted to do the version that has a backing. However, I like symmetry. That version of the pattern calls for you to knit a flat scarf that's 29 stitches wide (14 + a folding stitch + 14), fold it in half, and seam it up one side. I wanted the edges to look the same. Because of that, I chose to CO 16 stitches instead - the 14 stitches called for by the pattern plus one on either side to slip so that seaming would be easier. I did two repeats of the words (CRIME SCENE DO NOT CROSS), with a little padding on either end, then bound off and knit an panel of the same size in plain yellow, seaming them together a little at a time.
Stockinette curls. We all know that, but wow is it obvious in this case. Long tubes of stockinette are also devilishly difficult to seam together evenly.
I decided to crochet the two pieces together rather than using mattress stitch. Crocheting with the wrong sides facing means that the edges are being squashed together in the position they ultimately need to be in, and that forcibly stops curling. It also leaves a decorative edging. This photo shows the end and a bit of one edge attached, and it's already starting to flatten out.
Seaming in progress. You start with a slip knot on the crochet hook so that you have a loop to work with. Then, you poke the hook through the slipped edge stitch on the front panel, through the slipped edge stitch on the other panel, grab the yarn, pull it back through, and pull the yarn through the loop on the hook. Easy.
Rather than trying to count rows as I knit the back of the scarf, I went back and forth between knitting and seaming until I got to the end.
The headache in doing this is that after going seven or so feet in one direction, it's hard to make it line up exactly on the way back. I could have split the ball of yellow yarn to do both sides at once, but that would have made the edges look different as I'd be working from the front on one side and the back on the other. Instead, I basted the second side as I went, using black yarn for contrast, and then picked the basting out a little at a time later on.
And here's a closeup of the finished scarf. Being acrylic, there wasn't much point in blocking it, so I didn't bother. Overall, I'm pleased with the way it turned out, and I'm shocked that the colorwork and the scarf itself lay as flat as they do.