Picking Up and Knitting-On

Finishing My Silk Scarf

Picking Up Loops

Beachy colors, sand and blue, keep popping in my head to remind me of this summer’s trips to San Onofre where I watched my middle daughter surf. My new design and the creamy yarn  remind me of the ripples of waves and of colors bleach from the sun.

I used two different strands of Ito Kinu silk (remember this scarf) for the center section.  The mixture of blue and cream is definitely what I wanted.

The lace for the center section is based on a late 1800’s shawl pattern.  Like most old patterns, the original knitting terms were not the same as those used in current day patterns.  Thus the first step of this project was to figure out and translate the old terms.  Once this was complete, I quickly knit the center section of the scarf.

To make the knitted-on edging easier to pick up, I designed each row of the center section to begin with a yarn-over which creates little loops (see the photo above).  Shetland lace patterns, like Gudrun’s Loren, often use YOs at the edge of a section.  I followed each YO with a k2tog to keep the stitch count even.  After knitting the scarf center panel, the loops and provisional cast-on could have been transferred to a long circular needle, but instead I use an 8 inch double point and only pick up a few stitches at a time.   The picture above shows 6 picked up stitches and 5 edge stitches ready to knit.  Each right side row knits together one edge stitch and one of the loops.  Slowly the edging is knitted-on.

Jared Flood designs knitted-on edgings for many of his shawls/blankets.  I knew I wanted to do a knitted-on edging for my scarf but didn’t want it fussy or frilly.  Finding exactly what I wanted proved to be difficult.  I researched antique edgings (which for the most part these were too wide), searched through Ravelry, and drafted several variations.  I knit samples of at least 4 – 5 different edgings, but didn’t like any of them.  Finally I realized all I wanted was a simple 6 stitch border.  Perfect!

As of today, I have finished 3 sides of the knitted-on edging and have started on the 4th side.  I should finish the scarf when I am on vacation and block it the first week in September.  The pattern and photos will follow shortly.