My mother fell in love with Jamie Harmon's very bright colored, self-striping yarn at the 2005 Vermont Sheep and Wool Festival. With Jamie's help, mom chose the colors she wanted and placed a special order. A few weeks later the yarn arrived on my doorstep. I had agreed to knit a top down sweater to fit mom's measurements.
This yarn is scrumptious feeling (I think it is an angora merino blend, but I can't remember how much of each), but the colors were a bit much for me. On Thursday nights it became known as "The Ugly Sweater". We made lots of jokes about the colors.The sweater went along quickly until I had just one sleeve left to go. Then it languished. Then there were some sleeve length issues, but it was finally done. But still I, and everyone around me, wondered how anyone would be able to wear this crazy striped sweater. But, somehow, Mom pulls it off. I need to take some better photos (this one is from my phone and the colors are not quite shown to their full 'Disney puke' effect).
I had almost two skeins of the yarn left that have been burning a hole in my stash. I knew I had to make something for mom (she paid quite a bit for the stuff) and that whatever it was would probably be a bit silly (how could it not be in those colors?). So I present, The Very Hungry Scarf. The colors are truer here, but nothing like they are in real life.... Traci helped me photograph it in its natural environment and Melissa was kind enough to model it for me. Mom has not seen it. She'll either hate it or love it. I really can't predict. I'll be seeing her next weekend and I'll let you know how she reacts.I will make more of these. I think it would be nice in a solid color or a (muted) Silk Garden. It's a quick and kind of addictive pattern. Here is the recipe if anyone wants to try it:
Very Hungry Scarf
Heavy worsted / light bulky yarn (~200 yards)
#9 needles (For worsted weight yarn use #7 needles. But cast on more stitches to desired width (30-36) and knit 4 at the beginning and end of each row instead of 3.)
Cast on 24 stitches
Row 1 - knit
Row 2 - k3, p18, k3
Row 3 - k3, bind off 18, k3
Row 4 - k3, cast on 18*, k3
Repeat rows 1-4 to desired length ending with a Row 2.
Bind off all stitches.
* I used the knitted cast on - turn work around, insert needle into 3rd stitch just knit, knit stitch and place new loop onto left needle. Insert needle into the new loop just created and knit it and place new loop on needle, and so on until you have 18 new stitches plus the 3 knits at the beginning. Turn work and knit final 3 stitches at end of row.
In other news, I have tomatoes! I love love love homegrown tomatoes. I almost always avoid eating tomatoes in the winter because they are always so disappointing. It's been a few years since I grew my own and I forgot how cute they are when they are tiny little green things. And how exciting it is to eat the first ripe one.
When Traci saw the tiny baby ones she wanted to cast them in silver and make them into jewelry.
And in even other news there was a strange gasoline smell around here last night. It got so bad we finally called the police. The fire department showed up and spent some time standing around staring into the storm drains. They determined that someone had dumped gas in one of them. Eventually the sewer department was called out to flush out the drains with a truckload of water.Exciting.
