knit1frog2

the (now not so) evil brioche stitch

on newsstands now!

Why o why wasn't this printed last year in the Fall? This would have made the Harakiri scarf sooo much easier!  It wouldn't now be referred to as the Harakiri scarf.  At first when I saw the sweater, I laughed raucously!  That stitch!  But, Nancy Marchant goes into SO much detail of the 2-color brioche that I seriously still can't believe it.  Descriptions, drawings, everything is in there...!  It's great!  Go pick one up if you don't already get it delivered to your home.

Though the sweater that is made with this stitch is cute, I'm not sure if anyone should really wear a sweater made from it.  It's a seriously lofty stitch...read:  it will add at least a 1/2" to your frame.  For people like me, well, that's just not a good thing.  Do this:  Look at the woman in the sweater with the view from the back...turn the magazine upside-down, doesn't she look like a linebacker??  Well, sadly, you will too.  I still say it makes a great scarf.  Not only does it look pretty, but it's very very warm.

Snow Day!

Where have I been?

(this is livvy)

(and here is MPC)

It snowed today, that's where! Note the copious amounts!  ha!  Just enough for my niece and nephew to make snow angels. 

But I do have updates!  After staying up last night (until 1:30AM) trying to figure out how to end the infamous Harakiri scarf and being highly unproductive,  I woke up this morning and took it to a LYS. It took two women there to help me translate the ending directions!  I was so relieved to see that it wasn't just me who was having a difficult time. Finally, the i-cord, did do its magical-turn-the-corner-thing and I was on my way to finally finishing this scarf once and for all.  It was nice after all of that work, to have women come into the store and ooh and ahh and ask where they could find the pattern.  It made it all the more worthwhile.  Would I knit one for myself?  Maybe, since the pattern is still so fresh in my mind, and I have all of the tricks of the pattern written down on the page.  However, I'm still not convinced...

Val didn't want her face in the shot, which is really a shame b/c she's so very pretty...but here it is and she put it on today before we went back outside in the snow!  She looks really good in pink...and she said she loved it.  I also (finally) have the Weasley sweater pictures!  But I'll save those for Tuesday since that's the Weasley knitalong day...

I think I'm going to cast-on for a doubleknitski hat. I have a friend who has been kind of down lately and this might be the thing to cheer him up!

The Harakiri scarf

if your name is not Valerie and you're not my SIL, then click away

Valerie, if you're reading this, stop now.  Go do something else.  Feed Nemo.  Change out his water...Go pick up the little ones from school.

This project came from Melanie Falick's Weekend Knitter.  It's full of things you can supposedly finish quickly.  I went to my LYS and picked out some lovely yarn...went home and began the 2-color i-cord.  Well, first off, I knew something was wrong when the 27 sts didn't count to 31 PU sts.  Over and over this just didn't work and I was following the instructions.  Then I figured, maybe 2 setup rows + 27 = 29.  Okay, now I had the correct number of sts.  Next...the setup row in the D yarn.  Fine...but um, you're supposed to start the L yarn at the right end of the dpn, and it's currently over at the left end of the dpn.  What?  I ended up breaking off the L yarn and rejoining it back to the right side.  Good.  Progress.  Or so I thought.

This pattern is a set of 4 rows, and involves sl sts and yo's.  All of which need to be worked wyif!  Don't work wyib...don't do it, or you'll be sorry.  You'll end up with a fluffy weird thing breaking up your 2 rows of knit stitch.  (I'm glad to see I wasn't the only one having this problem and couldn't believe the luck in finding that post!)  After numerous starts and frogs (I'm embarrassed to tell you exactly how many and if the name of this post doesn't explain how I've felt while knitting it, I'm not sure what else to tell you.) I was finally underway. 

I could see the brioche rib taking form!  I was elated, I was relieved!  Then, after working on a good 5" of it...I saw something wrong.  Somehow the yarn had wrapped over and produced a hole with a straight D yarn crossing the L knit yarn.  This of course was 12 rows back.  I wasn't familiar enough with the stitch to randomly frog it back and recover it easily.  I had to frog the whole darn thing, yup, back to the i-cord. 

Now that I have a lot of it knit, I still occasionally look down and see something gone awry.  I've read others talking about this scarf..."it's a very relaxing stitch..."  Sure it is.  If I'm not careful, I end up purling the sl st instead of just slipping it!  The most disastrous knitting occured while watching Vin Diesel in The Fast and the Furious.  Note to self:  just put the knitting down when Vin is on. 

The weekend is gone and I'm still knitting it. Prior to this whole experience, I really wanted to knit one for myself.  Whether or not I will do it...will be left to be seen.  I do have to say however, that it is pretty and the flip side of the scarf reminds me of something...I know, the top of a hostess cupcake! yum.