Side Fringe Scarf and Tutorial

This week I finished a scarf I probably wouldn't have made except I'd been asked to. It's pink, it's for summer, and it has fringe--none of my favorite things. By the time I finished it, though, it had charmed me.



The scarf is based on the La Boheme pattern in A Year of Scarves, a book by Knit One, Crochet Too. As a summer scarf, it didn't need to be as wide as the one in the book, so I decided the main body of the scarf would be 18 stitches and the fringe would be created from 10 dropped stitches. (Yes, dropped. ON PURPOSE.) According to my higher level math skilz, that adds up to 28 stitches for the cast on.

Now, when I tried to explain the side-fringe method to a few curious bystanders while I was still knitting the scarf, I got even curiouser looks. (Insert wry comment here about my higher level explaining skilz.) Now that I'm done, I can show the steps in pictures.

First, I bound off 18 stitches. Actually, I bound off 17 stitches and had a solitary stitch remaining on the right needle.



This stitch needs to be knotted, so I drew the yarn up to make a larger loop.



I snipped the yarn from the ball, leaving about ten inches for a tail, and inserted the yarn end through the loop. (The tail doesn't need to be woven in since it can blend with the fringe.)



I tightened the knot…



And all I had to deal with were the ten stitches on the left needle.



So I ZIPPED the needle out of the them!



Which meant I could beginning unraveling the stitches.



Unbeknownst to me, ten stitches unraveled from garter stitching makes for a lot of fringe. A lot. Like, 10.5 inches. Look at the miles of fringe on the scarf.



To tame the fringe, I harkened back to a project I have "favorited" on Ravelry but will never realistically begin: the Lady Eleanor Entrelac Wrap from Scarf Style. Sorry, no photo for the wrap, but it's knotwork fringe is beautiful and worked well for my dilemma.



And that's how I made pink fringed lemonade out of a pink fringed summer scarf.  To peruse more details of the scarf, please skip on over to its Ravelry project page.


Linked to:

The DIY Show Off

Under the Table and Dreaming's Sunday Showcase

Just Something I Whipped Up

An hour in early spring

A little over a week ago, THOMY and I took lunch al fresco and wandered a bit through the city garden. It was our anniversary.



I had to use the telephoto lens to snap this shot. The buds are huge, but I couldn't find the plaque under the tree to discover their proper name. Anyone have a guess?





They're growing feathers next to the peony bushes now, I gather. Who knew they were a companion crop?

And, close up…





The brook was an inviting feature that day. Proof:



And now we're just waiting for the roses to wake up.