Falling Blossoms Scarf

This scarf is the ideal spring project for "bi-craftuals" :)
You can combine your knitting and crocheting skills into one special garment.

The scarf is knitted from side to side with crochet flowers added at the beginning of every 12th row by taking the last stitch off the needle and using it as a chain stitch to crochet from. After two flowers have been crocheted the stitch is slipped back on the knitting needle and knitting is continued in a normal way.

A photo tutorial on how to crochet the flowers can be found in this blog post.






Falling Blossoms Scarf by Knitting and so on is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Materials:

• 3.5 mm knitting needles (i.e. knitting needles that were slightly bigger than the yarn called for)
• 2.5 mm crochet hook
• ca. 100 grams fingering weight yarn (I used Zwerger Opal Surprise, but any other fingering weight with a nice color change will do)

How to crochet the flowers:
At the beginning of a row use the crochet hook to take the first stitch from your knitting needle and start to crochet the flowers - the numbers in square brackets are references to the chart.

• ch 7, sl st in 4th chain to form a small loop (the first flower will be crocheted around this loop) [1]
• to form the first petal ch 3, dc 2 in loop, ch 3 and sl st in loop, 
• ch 3, dc 2 in loop (this starts the second petal of the first flower)
• ch 7, sl st in 4th chain to form a small loop (the second flower will be crocheted around this loop) [2]
• ch 3, dc 2 in loop, ch 3, sl st in loop (first petal)
• ch 3, dc 2 in loop, ch 3, sl st in loop (second petal) 
• ch 3, dc 2 in loop, ch 3, sl st in loop (third petal) 
• ch 3, dc 2 in loop, sl st in the top of the last dc of the second petal of the first flower [3]
• ch 3, sl st in loop of first flower (the second petal of the first flower is now finished)
• ch 3, dc 2 in loop, ch 3, sl st in loop (third petal)  
• ch 3, dc 2 in loop, sl st in the first chain [4]
• put stitch back on knitting needle and continue pattern

I have written a short tutorial (with photos) on how to crochet the flowers - here's the link.

Instructions:
CO2
knit 2 rows

Section 1 - Set-up rows
Row 1: kfb, k to end
Row 2 - 6: k
repeat these rows a total of 8 times (you have 10 sts on your needles)

Section 2 - Increase rows
Row 1: kfb, k to end
Row 2: k
Row 3: make flower and then k to end
Row 4-6: k
Row 7: kfb, k to end
Row 8-12: k
Repeat these rows a total of 19 times and once more knit rows 1-10 (you have 50 sts on your needles)

Section 3 - Decrease rows
Row 1: k
Row 2: k until the last two stitches k2tog
Row 3-4: k
Row 5: make flower and then k to end
Row 6-7: k
Row 8: k until the last two stitches k2tog
Row 9-12: k
Repeat these rows a total of 20 time

Section 4 - Finishing rows
Row 1: k
Row 2: k until the last two stitches k2tog
Row 3-6: k
Repeat these rows 7 times (there are only 3 sts left on your needles), then
knit one row,
knit and k2tog,
knit one row
and bind off the last two stitches.

Weave in ends and block - making sure to block the flowers separately.

This post was featured on The Philosopher's Wife: Yarn Fanatic Party #31, Pinbellish Link Party No. 40 at Purfylle.com. and at Moogly's Hookin' up on Hump Day Link Party No. 120. Thank you!

Mini-Cable Fingerless Gloves

I'm still not sure how this stitch is called – I found a YouTube video that called it „mock cables“, however my (German) stitch dictionary calls it „Minizöpfe“ (i.e. mini-cables) which seens more suitable, since it's not only a cable „look“, but the stitches are actually crossed. But whatever the stitch is called, I like it.

The finished gloves will be about 20cm long and 17cm in circumference.






This work by Knitting and so on is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Materials
Fingering weight yarn
3.5 mm dpns
Stitch holder or waste yarn
Tapestry needle

The Mini-Cable Stitch

• mini-cable: insert your right needle in the second stitch on the left needle and knit it, but don't slip it. Then knit the first stitch on the left needle and let both stitches slip from the needle.

Other Stitches

• make 1 purl stitch: insert needle from the back in the bar between the two stitches and purl through the front
• make 1 right or make a knit stitch leaning to the right: insert needle from the back in the bar between two stitches and knit the stitch through the front
• make 1 left or make a knit stitch leaning to the left: insert needle from the front in the bar between two stitches and knit the stitch through the back of the loop

Instructions
CO48 and join in round
Row 1: *p1 k2 p1* repeat
Row 2: *p1 mini-cable p1* repeat
Repeat those two rows a total of 18 times and start thumb gusset around one of the mini-cables accordinng to chart.

After the 16th row of the thumb gusset put 14 stitches on stitch holder and CO 4 above the thumb gusset, these four stitches will be knitted „p1 k2 p1“ in the next row to continue the mini-cable pattern.
Continue pattern for another 13 rows and bind off in pattern.

Thumb
Place stitches from stitch holder on two dpns. Pick up additional 8 stitches from above the thumb gusset. Continue according to chart.

Bind off in 10th row.

Weave in ends.

Make two.

Ten Stitches

Trying to do something else with the brilliant ten-stitch blanket or ten-stitch scarf pattern.

My original idea was to form the cuffs for fingerless gloves in this pattern, than join it in a round and pick up the stitches for the rest of the glove, but somehow it didn't really work out.

Here's a video showing how to knit an enhanced version of the ten-stitch blanket - in German.

Still so cold ...

It's still very cold outside and it even snows ... that's why yesterday I treated myself to some super bulky yarn (3 skeins of Lang Yarns Astrakan).

I plan to turn it into a large-ish cowl (knit simply in garter stitch) and another urchin hat - I really like that pattern.

More ideas

• Spinning newspaper yarn from packing paper and knitting (crocheting?) a bowl for knitting utensils or something similar
• Knitting a pair of fingerless gloves in plain ribbing and decorate the edges with leftover Astrakan or Uno

Mock Cable ... or too many ideas

A few days ago I googled for "mock cable". Here's the first video I found. I really liked the pattern it produced, so I started to knit some fingerless gloves - using a band of two mock cables as the top, then picking up stitches at the side to make the actual glove. It  turned out a bit to tight, so I frogged it.

However, I think that this stitch produces a lovely pattern. So I started another pair but only with mock cable ribbing. I quite like it, and I definitely will pursue the "cable band at the top" idea later.

As to the name of the stitch ("mock cable"), I'm not sure whether it is really correct - since the stitches are really twisted, I guess it's more of a mini cable than a mock one.


Some more googling produced this video where this is done differently.  I will try that also ... sometime.

Chains

By chance I found this video where a cable chain ("trenza cadena") is explained. Even though it's in spanish it's easy to follow.

I changed it slightly (basically throwing in a few purl stitches) to knit another pair of fingerless gloves.