Monday, May 14, 2018

Harvest Porcupine Infinity Scarf

I was gifted a skein of yarn. I decided I'd make myself an infinity scarf with it.

I looked through my stitch dictionaries to find a stitch pattern to use. I decided to go with one called the Porcupine Stitch.

I made a test swatch. I figured out about how long I'd want the scarf to be. I did the usual calculations to figure out how many stitches to cast on. And then I began.

I've already blogged about this and how I made a bunch of mistakes at the beginning...


The yarn is fingering weight (read: pretty fine), so the progress was slow. A month later...


And that was about a month before now.

Because I only had the one skein, how wide the scarf actually became was somewhat out of my control (because I was knitting it long-ways). I'm terrible at estimating sizes. I hoped for rather than expected everything to work out in the end.

The other component of this knit was when to end it. The stitch pattern repeats every nine rows, and I wanted to end on a row that mirrored the beginning of the scarf. But, I only had the one skein, so I had to end it before I ran out of yarn.

Last Saturday (the 5th) I thought that was it. But as I approached the row I'd need to bind off, that ball of yarn looked like it had another repeat in it. So, I continued on.

Then this past Friday (the 11th) I approached the predetermined bind off row again. I looked at the remaining yarn and wondered...


Well, there was one way I could determine with certainty. I could weigh it.

(This is an old knitting trick. If you've knitted one mitten and you're not sure if you have enough yarn for a second, weigh the mitten, then weigh the loose yarn. If the yarn weighs more than the mitten, you're good to go.

As this isn't mittens, I needed to do a few more calculations. Weigh the project (minus the needles). Determine how many pattern repeats had been completed. Divide weight by pattern repeats. If that number was smaller than the weight of the remaining yarn, I'd be good to go.)

I got out my scale, and... The batteries were dead. And I had no AAA batteries in the house.

Okay, eyeballing it...

I got to the bind off row again...

Remaining yarn ball between blue brackets--hard to see otherwise.
And I decided not to risk it. It was finally time to bind off. That was Saturday night...

I finished the thing sometime after midnight.


I haven't blocked it. I kind of like the texture.


And I don't want to flatten it out. Who knows? I may decide to block it later. (I'm not going to be wearing it any time soon. We're going into warm weather season.)

So, did I have another pattern repeat's worth of yarn? I'll let you decide. Here's how much yarn I had left over when I cut the yarn after finishing the bind off row...


I think the size turned out just fine...


And now I'm again in between knitting projects. Deep sigh.

23 comments:

  1. That was probably a good call to stop there. I think it looks cool all bunchy.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Such a pretty color! Looks good and I think you ended it just in the "nick of time" so to speak. Good use of the yarn you were given!

    betty

    ReplyDelete
  3. The color's great! Great gift turned into something quite useful.

    ReplyDelete
  4. That's impressive. Perfect fall colors. Who knew so much calculating was involved in making it? Nice job!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Oh yeah. Knitting requires lots of math. Unless you're just following a pattern. And then, a little less math.

      Delete
  5. Yay I'm always scared to play yarn chicken haha I have used my scale a few times to see if I had another row amount of yarn left to use

    ReplyDelete
  6. The colour is great for the fall and winter. You created a great looking scarf and just in the Knit of time (Groan). You almost ran out so i know you planned it all along. It looks great

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Planned... *snort* Nah. I was guessing all along.

      Delete
  7. Up until midnight knitting. You live a wild and crazy life, Liz.

    It's super pretty. Love that color.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Looks very nice! And very efficient use of the yarn, too.

    ReplyDelete
  9. I agree with Nick. And you finish projects, which is not always true for a lot of people. Well done.

    ReplyDelete
  10. It looks pretty. I'm rubbish at figuring out if I have enough yarn. I never do and have to frog some and bind off.

    ReplyDelete
  11. That is so pretty. I used to have so much on those small balls of yarn but about a yr and half ago I got rid of it all. Before I used to make a scrap afghan, I would start with the first color and just go till it ended and pick up wherever on another color. Lots of strings to finish off when done but I loved all the colors in the afghan and if did not have to finish on the end.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Oooh, that sounds like a great project. I've done similar, but I pair it with a felting yarn and then felt the final product. It adds something with all the colors combined.

      Delete
  12. Cute scarf. I like the color, so golden with a nice toasty-warm feel about it. In that last photo, I'm reminded of a happy beehive. I'm impressed with your math formula. Couldn't follow it, but then I didn't try since I no longer want to knit. :-)

    ReplyDelete
  13. Way too complicated for me but I love the colour.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I included that for the knitters amongst my readers ;)

      Delete
  14. I think your eyeball calculation was amazingly spot on. I don't knit, I crochet (when I have time which is rare these days) and I've never thought about weighing, which is a brilliant idea and one I will try to remember for the future.

    ReplyDelete

I appreciate your comments.

I respond to comments* via email, unless your profile email is not enabled. Then, I'll reply in the comment thread. Eventually. Probably.

*Exception: I do not respond to "what if?" comments, but I do read them all. Those questions are open to your interpretation, and I don't wish to limit your imagination by what I thought the question was supposed to be.