After over a year plucking away at this one project I’m finally finished!! Some time ago, while up in Victoria I bought a gorgeous kid mohair yarn by Debbie Bliss from Beehive Wool Shop. On display they had a scarf I fell in love with: Churchmouse Yarn‘s Mohair Bias Loop scarf. I bought all needed for the project that day and started crafting maybe the next week.
This project has not been without its frustrations. I can’t even remember how many times I had to pull rows back. The most notable time was when I was about a quarter finished and had to go back to about the first 5 rows. I will say that thanks to that, it’s hard to tell which row was the grafting row. I twisted the yarn the wrong when while putting them back onto the needles. At the time I was quite saddened, as it highlighted my mistake and where I started again. In the case of the live stitch row, once again I twisted the yarn. I was even being very careful to take note this time but still got the stitches on the wrong way. The two twisted rows are so close it’s easy to mix up with one I grafted with.
Overall the pattern is quite simple and easy to read. The challenge comes in due to the type of yarn required. Back in August, Kami and I decided we would take a trip to Churchmouse Yarn and Tea Shop. It happens they are local to our area and on Bainbridge Island. It’s a ferry ride away from Seattle and about 1:45 mins for me. They have a cool shop, and a surprisingly large staff. Both Kami and I are used to local yarn shops with one, maybe two people working. This place had 5, on duty and all of them busy helping someone nearly the whole time we were there. They are all really knowledgable and friendly. I showed my scarf to one of the staff. She helped me measure it and looked it over. She said the the width was great and I need only another 10 inches or so. I was really encouraged by this. She also said that this project for her got really tedious at about the stage I was at. She showed me one she made, it used a linen yarn so was physically heavier but still great. Also at that time I got the idea to switch to metal needles. When I described one of my hardships, she suggested I try metal needles instead of the wood ones. I borrowed Kami’s and gave it a whirl. Wow! Holy difference it made! That switch alone is probably what helped me finish this now instead of months from now. How nicely the yarn just slid on them. It cemented my thought to buy the HiyaHiya interchangeable large set in about two rows.
The Kitchener stitch used to graft the scarf together took me about 2 hours to complete. It’s not complicated at all but does take focus and time. To help me remember where I was, I used two different needles. One being the needle I knit with and the other was a straight, pink in color. I only did this because I managed to twist the scarf while putting on my live stitches. When I noticed that I moved them to a straight I had. While knowing where I while grafting wasn’t the goal, I can say I plan on using this method for this stitch again! More than once I had to put the project down and it was really easy to start again. In my case, pink needle meant I started with knit and metal meant I started with purl.
Will I make another, you wonder? Yes I will. This is such a gorgeous finished project; light and airy yet warm.
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