A good friend's high-school age daughter loves novelty scarves. I made her a Spontaneous Scarf which she loved and wore to school but I felt bad because it was itchy. So here's my second attempt to make something for her using two yarns I bought on sale at Webs. I broke a circular needle while knitting it but was lucky in yardage. I had about 3 inches of yarn left over from the skein of Mosaic FX after binding off.











GARTER LACE SCARF



Materials: 1 skein Cascada Lana d'Oro worsted weight alpaca/wool, color Colonial Blue

1 skein Mosaic FX rail ribbon yarn, color 4624, Far from Heaven (Mosaic FX yardage is 78 yards and I was really close to needing a second skein)



Size 9 (US) circular needle, as long as you can find



Gauge - unimportant



Finished Size: 3 inches wide by 40 inches long - this is sized for a petite sized girl - if you are making this for an adult add at least a foot. You can cast on any multiple of 2.



Construction Notes: This scarf is knit lengthwise with two yarns held together. Because I hate adding fringe, I cut the yarns after each row so the fringe is built in. Knot the yarns together at either end as you go so it doesn't unravel. If you prefer to add fringe later, just keep knitting and don't cut.



With both yarns held together, cast on 110 stitches LOOSELY. Cut both yarns, leaving a 5-inch tail. Attach both yarns again , leaving a 5-inch tail.



Row 1: (WS) Knit across row, cutting yarns, leaving a 5-inch tail.

Row 2: (RS) Knit across row, cutting yarns, leaving a 5-inch tail.

Row 3: Knit across row, cutting yarns, leaving a 5-inch tail.

Row 4: K1, *YO, K2TOG;, repeat from * across row, end K1. Cut yarns, leaving a 5-inch tail.



Repeat rows 1-4 two more times. Repeat rows 1-3. Bind off LOOSELY, leaving a 5-inch tail.



Now do whatever you want with the fringe. I did single knots and then tied the fringe together about 1 1/2 inches from the top.(Copyright Nanette J. Blanchard, 2004)

COLOR JOGS









These photos show how the hat patterns look before working in the ends on both the inside and the outside of the hat. When you knit circularly your patterns do NOT line up at the end of the row. Think of the stripes on a barber pole or a candy cane - they're actually spirals. If you look at the photo, especially the stripes, you can see the spot where the stripes don't meet. This is called the color jog and is the bane of many a knitter.



There are several techniques used to assist knitters avoid the awful jog. The best article I've seen on the subject is called "The Jogless Jog" by Meg Swansen in the winter 1996 issue of Knitter's Magazine. She details four techniques for four different circumstances: unconnected motifs, speckles, connected motifs, alternate color stripes, and solid stripes of two or more rounds. Vogue Knitting also did a short article on the subject in their winter issue a few years ago.



It really does vary on the specific pattern and on how successful the end result looks. There is no one perfect solution and some can be quite complicated, involving moving the end of the row over each row. If you're doing a complicated, not-easily-memorized chart, this particular jogless jog technique can drive you over the edge. I personally do not believe there is a perfect solution and I think most of the solutions are visible.



Judy Gibson has her own take on this situation HERE. She first shows you what one of the Meg Swansen jogless jog technique looks like and then shows you her own method of dealing with it. My method has one thing in common with Judy's. It involves breaking the yarns as much as possible. Yes, I know there are more ends to weave in which can be time-consuming. Even if there was no problem with jogs, I think carrying unused yarns upward too many rows can cause holes or lumps or tension problems.



For my method you simply cut the yarn when you are done with a particular color. Then look at the back of the work in the photo above. You'll see for each color of yarn you have a yarn tail coming from the right side and one coming from the left. Take the tail coming from the right side and work it in down over on the left side in the same color stitches. You're taking the yarn tail, crossing it over and working it diagonally to make the stripe line up. For the tail coming from the left side, work it

up over on the right side in the same color stitches. Here are photos of the inside and outside of the hat after the ends are worked in using this method. I've used the reverse stockinette stitch method of weaving in the yarn ends (I've discussed this here before) which is pretty invisible on the inside of a garment.









As you can see you can still tell where the jog is if you look at the 2-row stripes but it isn't terribly noticeable overall. Sometimes you can alter the pattern design a bit to avoid the jog by adding a one-stitch column of the background color between the pattern. Or add a vertical column between patterns in the contrast color. Just one column of one or two stitches done in the same color can offset any color jog pretty well.



Another solution I use is to simply knit one or two edge stitches in the same color to make a vertical stripe as shown in underside of the Dale of Norway Ringblomst sleeve here. This method seems to look best if you use the darker color yarn for the edge stitches.







I'm taking a few days off to finish the booklet. I'll be back Monday.

Here is the beginner's color knitting hat I'm using for the book. (I'm also including a three-color Norwegian Star hat.) This bright hat is knit without shaping with Cascade 220 and a circular needle with a three needle bind-off (although you can just sew a seam if you prefer) and will have two tassels on the top sides, making it look like a jester's hat when worn. It can also be turned upside down and used as a bag with some I-cord straps.







This photo shows it before blocking and weaving in the ends. As you can see my knitting tension was worse around the hot pink pattern on the bottom. It is hard to always say which patterns are going to cause knitting tension problems but in general patterns with more of a vertical focus, like vertical stripes, offer me the most tension challenges. These tension problems will all block out fortunately.



Here is a scan of the inside of the hat showing the difference between the horizontal stripes and the color pattern parts which have floats.







Tomorrow I'll show how to work in the ends on this hat and also talk about some of the ways I deal with color jogs in knitting patterns.