Versitility

Lately I have been surprising myself in seeing things differently. I'm a pretty literal girl. I can imagine sweaters in different colors, but it is only recently that I am starting to get better at imagining how that same sweater might look if the collar was altered or a little more shaping was added.

I've also been doing a lot of simple knitting as well... socks, scarves, stoles -- things with simple, but versitile shapes. My most recent simple project for myself is a stole out of Classic Elite Ibis in "Frisky Fern" (otherwise known as color #4772). I was "introduced" to Ibis by Rob a couple of months ago. I bought a couple of skeins of the Fern and the Cordovan thinking that I would make scarves for myself and my mother-in-law, and was pleasantly surprised when the Ibis turned out to be pretty nice to knit with.

Before I got around to my scarf, I was browsing through KnitPicks and came across this free pattern. But I didn't think the fabric was substantial enough or long enough. So I changed it to the following:

CO 40 stitches with US size 15 needle.
Switch to US size 10 needle
Row 1: Knit across
Row 2: (K1 YO2) repeat until 1 stitch remains, K1
Row 3: Knit across

Repeat Rows 1-3 until stole measures 66".
Bind off loosely knitwise with US size 15 needle.

The end product is roughly 66" long and 10" wide. It took 2 skeins an a bit more from a third skein to match my wingspan -- I have quite a bit of the third skein left to play with. You could probably get very close to 60" with only two skeins.

After finishing something for me, I like to stand in front of the mirror and take a look at it. For a sweater, I'm looking to see if the shaping works out, if the sleeves are long enough, if the seams lie the way they should. For a scarfy object I like to look at drape and color and figure out the best way to wear it to show it off. This stole had so many different personalities as I stood in front of the mirror.

First, there's the classic stole/shawl look. Here you get a sense for how the width of the stole widens when the drop stitches are parallel with the ground. I think this configuration would work best if I had a nice pin or clasp to hold it in place.

Stole as Shawl

Next, if you let the stole wrapping fall, there's the scarf action. I like wearing my scarves this way a lot -- almost like having a vest. I also love the vertical lines created. I think it has a nice, slimming effect.

Stole as Scarf

While playing with it in scarfy mode, I realized that it also had a lot of shrug potential. The wide scarf ends give almost a bell sleeve effect. I am thinking that it might be quite pretty with some sagey green ribbon woven through the edges under the arms to create "sleeves" that would stay on (although it gripped to my turtleneck pretty well without any extra binding). I was thinking about fringing the thing until the shruggy idea hit.

Stole as Shrug

This is just a shot to give some idea of the length of the finished stole.

Wingspan of an Ibis

Suffice it to say, I'm pretty pleased with this simple item. I need to give the humble rectangle a little more credit! I think it's something I can wear to work to give a turtleneck a little zing, or something that could dress up a sleeveless top for a dressier night out. I love the soft, fuzzy quality of the yarn. The fuzz is much more like soft feathers than like fur and the binder strand has some shiny properties to add just a little more sparkle. Ibis is very soft next to the skin, and could easily be used for cuffs, collars or sleeves.

What did I learn?

• Not all eyelash yarns are evil to knit with. After knitting with the Crystal Palace Splash I almost swore never to go near them again.
  
• When working with an in-elastic yarn, to get a starting edge that isn't narrower than the project as a whole, cast on and bind off with a larger needle than the body of the project will be worked in. If I hadn't done this, not only with the thing not look as good, but I also never would have seen the shruggy possibilites.
  
• Try not to limit a garment or project to the exact function for which I originally envisioned it.
  
• Don't be afraid to modify a pattern to suit my tastes. In this case, it wasn't rocket science to make the changes I made to the simple pattern I found, but it was more the principle of the thing... I just thought about what I wanted and went for it. And it worked (at least for me). That gives me the foundation to go onto more daring changes for other things and believe that my instincts could be okay.
  

Happy New Year to Everyone! May 2004 bring good things to your doorstep.