scarfing maddness

BH&G May 2006 SCARF

In the May 2006 copy of Better Homes and Gardens, I came across this scarf, it said it was for beginners and looked pretty impressive, I was inspired. My relatively recent trip to Albury and surrounds, Beechworth to be exact, and The Ardant Alpaca was the final motivation. They had the balls of 4ply Alpaca and it was soooo soft, and the shop so inspirational, the scarf felt all but done....

A review of the archives puts the purchase of the wool towards the end of May, so the production of the scarf has been approximately 8 weeks. 6 weeks was a fairly solid effort with a couple of weeks away from this project due to my grandmother being in hospital. The scarf is actually for my grandmother for her birthday which is in a couple of weeks, and given she has been so sick I was beginning to wonder if I would have the opportunity to give it to her. Now that she is on the mend though I was remotivated, and ta da!

scarf model

enough already

The scarf is finished, complete with embellishments. It is not quite like the one in the magazine, it is longer, and has a few mistakes. The mistakes bother me a bit but the pattern wasn't as easy as I expected a beginner patter to be. If I lost concentration I couldn't remember what order of passing over, slipping stiches, forwarding and goodness what else was required for the end product to look like lace. There was many an expletive made, family disharmony, throwing down of knitting needles, and unravelling that took place before we even finished the first ball of wool. So much so that the first ball required B's assistance to unroll and reroll so that I could start from the other end, as the wool had become fuzzy. But if I do say so about myself, I am determined/pig headed, although when it came to picking up the needles this last week to finish the scarf, I once again stuffed up the pattern and rather than persist, as the scarf was longer than the patterns prescribed length, undid the stitches slowly the couple of rows I had just done and immediately cast off. So pleased with the finished product, I have decided to have a go at this one, from Notebook.

patons scarf Notebook Magazine August issue

I really like the colour of the wool, however, Spotlight didn't have that colour and as I couldn't be bothered in trawling the stores, I have this wool instead.

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