Hmmm. As I was writing today’s entry, I wanted to refer back to a post I remembered writing back in June of 2004. Apparently not all of the posts for that month imported correctly when we transferred our archives over. So the posts you’ll see today are hand-carried ports of the AWOL material. Apologies for the deja vu. True new content tomorrow. I promise.

Material originally appearing on June 13, 2004. For the record, the pattern for the Spring Lightning Lacy scarf is now in the main wiseNeedle pattern collection.

WORKING REPORT – SUMMER LIGHTNING LACY SCARF

I’d hoped to be able to report this a done item, complete with in-block pictures, but life continues to intrude. Closing for our move is on Monday, and hectic does not begin to describe the household right now. At least we don’t move for another month. I’d have gone nuts if packing was loaded on top of everything else.

I can report a good deal of progress on the scarf, even if it isn’t done. Exactly as described, I ripped back to before the final panel, added around six inches of length, then reknit that part. I’ve added all but the last six inches of the edging, going completely around the new end.

One person has asked if I’m doing anything special where ends of the edging meet. I started the edging in the center along one side on the theory that the scarf’s center was most likely to be worn behind the neck. I’m hoping to make everything work out so that I end my edging knitting on the last row of the pattern. That way I’ll graft the live stitches of the last row to the half-hitch cast on I used when I began. That should make an almost-invisible seam. To make sure I end up at that spot I’ll have to plan ahead. My edging pattern is 8 rows long. Since I’m attaching at the rate of one attachment point per two rows (at the beginning of each right-side row), and since the scarf body was done with a slip stitched selvage edge things should be easy to calculate. That works out to one attachment point per slipped selvage chain.

Starting around now with six inches to go, the next time I am about to begin at Row #1, I’ll count the remaining selvage chains to see if the total count is divisible by four. If so, I’ll just work along merrily until the last row is complete. If not, I’ll figure out how to fudge by either adding an extra attachment point or two, spaced out over the six inches, or by skipping an attachment point at the very end. I’d prefer to fudge by adding rather than skipping attachment points because a little tiny bit of extra flutter is less noticeable in a fluttery scarf than would be a little bit of puckering.

Another question I’ve gotten is how I went about edging the corners. At first I’d planned on mitering the corners, but that fell through. Instead I just eyeballed it, working three points worth of rows (that’s 24 rows or 12 attachment points) in each corner. I spread those pick-ups out just a little, starting them one stitch away from the corner, on the corner stitch itself, and continuing onto the stitch following the corner, but the bulk were lumped up as best I could in the corner stitch itself. Here’s the scarf end so you can see: