Sunday, June 20, 2010

Enchanted Forest Lace Scarf

For the upcoming lace book, I wanted to put in one larger electronic pattern, both to spark the imagination and add value to the book.  I decided to modify my scalloped edge lace scarf to make it wider for a lace-weight yarn.

This very lightweight alpaca blend from Webs, in a rich forest green, was easy to machine knit.  It comes coned.  The hand is marvelous.  I adapted a lace pattern from Stitch World to do the automatic edge decreases for a scallop (instead of the tedious add and take-away method).

You could do this one either way.  If you want automatic edges, though, you're going to need a special pattern for exactly the right width.  I would have to alter the stitch pattern if I wanted it wider or narrower.

The scarf is 6 feet long and only 5-1/2 ounces; so very delicate.  I knitted on tension 6 for 675 rows, and kept moving weights up.  It's just a little harder to knit the very thin yarn through after lace transfers, and weights help.   This multiple transfer lace takes up to eight passes with the lace carriage before the main carriage, so by doing about 100 rows in a session, it took a few days.

The finished scarf looks pretty good after just a steaming, but I might pin it out damp for more pronounced edges.


4 comments:

  1. Diana, is it possible to make a 24 st. punch card based on Stitch World #168? I tried it, using the programming chart in the SW book, but wasn't able to knit the Enchanted Forest scarf on the Brother 881. I centered the 20 stitch wide pattern on the 24 st. card. Gave it a good try, but failed! :-) Ruth

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  2. I would add the extra stitches in the middle of the leaf motif.

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  3. Was the yarn you used 2/24? also, did you use one strand or more?

    Ginny

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  4. The yarn is an alpaca and silk blend lace weight hand knitting yarn. It is thicker than 2/24 but thinner than 2/12. I had to watch it as I worked, because thin yarns sometimes don't knit off in lace.

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