2 August 2015

Knitting Adventures - Silk Scarf, and my new dressmaker's dummy!

Do you remember when I bought some silk yarn on my visit to Tasmania last year? The yarn is 100% silk, from a local Tasmanian artist Rebecca Kissling. I had in mind to make a scarf, but have been taking my time thinking about it before making it up.

Well, the time had come, and my neck was crying out for a different scarf to wear, so I took a week out from my other knitting project to make this up. I didn't want a pattern that was too boring, but also didn't want to have to follow a pattern or think too hard when making this one. I settled on a 2 x 2 rib knit, so the scarf would look the same on both sides, and not roll at the edges.


I'm not sure what ply this was, but the hank weighed in at 100g, and I used size 5.5 needles to knit it.

Before I rolled it up into a ball, I had assumed that it was all one length, but it turned out to have five joins in it. So I just tied knots with longer ends so that I could weave them all in when I was done. I did not however, count on the yarn being so delicate to work with. Whilst casting on I managed to break the thread. It simply slipped through my hands and ended up being in two pieces! Rather than undo it and start again however, I tied another knot! How lazy am I? I hate casting on, and couldn't bear to do it again. I'd had issues, and this was my already my second attempt.


I wasn't sure how long it would end up being, so right from the start had to balance out how wide I wanted it with how long I thought it would be. I weighed my ball of yarn before I started, and cast on 42 stitches. I then kept on weighing it every few days to:
a) See how much longer I would be knitting for and
b) how long I thought the finished scarf would be

My first educated guess was based  on using 14g of yarn. At that stage I had knit 14cm of scarf, which quite by accident was 28 rows. So I guessed that it would end up being about 1 metre long, with 200 rows.

Without stretching it out, the finished length is 1.15m long, with approx 214 rows. It took me less than a week to knit, but has more than 10 hours work in it.


It is so beautiful and soft, I'm likely to not take it off now until the weather is too warm to wear it. Even then, I might be tempted to just hang it around my neck anyway.



I would also like to introduce you to my new dressmaker's dummy. I thought I would let her model this scarf for you instead of taking photos of myself. I've had my eye on this one for a few years since Carolyn wrote a post about the new dummy that she bought for her daughter, but I couldn't justify the price tag, even with popped rivets on the dummy that I'm using now. Well, it just so happens that the supplier I found for my ban-rol, Stitch 56, stocks the same dressmaker's dummy that Carolyn bought, and were having a sale on them for the month of July. I figured it was now or never, so here she is. Thanks Carolyn for doing all the research, I'm hoping my dummy and I have many happy years together!


I'm just trying to think of a name now. I've rejected a few so far, does anyone have any suggestions?


2 comments:

  1. Ooh lovely looking scarf and pity it was such a pain to work with.

    My dressmaking assistant is named after the lady that taught me to sew!

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    Replies
    1. The yarn itself was lovely to knit with, it was just the joins that were a bit of a surprise. I love how you refer to your dummy as your assistant!

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