Friday, May 19, 2006

The wool scarf: a cautionary tale.


I finished the scarf. This is it, before blocking. It is 32 inches/83 centimeters long, which is pitifully short and barely enough to go around your neck. I know this. That's why I knit it so short, see. I've done this before and any kind of combination of wool (or alpaca, in this case) and ribbing/cables does mighty strange things when it hits water. Like lengthen by at least 1/3 it's unblocked length.

I gave the thing a swish in warm water and Eucalan (love Eucalan Lavender. Love it, love it). When I pulled it out, I measured again, and it was already at 37 inches/96 centimeters. THEN I blocked it (read: stretched it lengthwise as much as humanly possible) and it stretched out to 43 inches/110 centimeters.

You guys might want to keep this in mind when knitting scarves. If you haven't already learned it the hard way, yourselves.

In other news... hm. I could have sworn there was some other news.

Oh. I'm about one third done on the Tomten sweater, which is my only project at the moment. I was planning to dive right in to my father-in-law's Christmas sweater when the yarn gets here (any day now), but it has now been pushed back so that I can knit a doily for the person who made the quilt for the baby, and do the infamous wrap (again) for my friend. She's hitting a landmark in her life and could use a gift around mid-June.

It has occurred to me that I'd meet my knitting goals a lot more easily without shuffling in gifts every time I turn around, which is due to being a Nice Person. I'm sure this is my mother's fault, somehow.

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