Gift #1 is the Golden Drop Stitch Scarf. This golden beauty went to my Aunt Paulette.
Her favorite color is blue and I had every intention of making a blue scarf for her. I inherited a nice baby blue yarn and actually came up with my own pattern and knit a scarf for her. Why didn’t she get that one you ask? Well, as I said, it was inherited from the cousin of a friend who was a veteran crochet and knitter. She (or someone else in the house) was also, as I found out, a smoker of some kind. As I knit the scarf, I began noticing burns in the yarn. Hmm…hope it’s not going throughout the skein. Guess what? It did. So I finished the scarf with the thought of adding appliqués and never got around to it. Once I bought this book, that idea completely disappeared until now.
The pattern called for super bulky gold roving yarn and I bought a soft Wool-Ease Think & Quick super bulky denim blue skein of yarn as a substitute. Once I made it through the first set of drop stitches, I noticed it looked nothing like the picture. I frogged (undid everything) it and started again. Needless to say, I frogged it about 6 more times. I couldn’t figure out what I was doing wrong so I headed over to the Tangled Web.
What I learned was that the yarn used in the pattern was a single strand of yarn and I was using a double strand (two strands twisted around each other). So, the yarn would work with the pattern, but it will look a little different. Looking at the pattern and the color of the yarn, it dawned on me that the pattern would look better in the mustard yellow, because the blue wasn’t cutting it.
I fingered the yarn in the shop before leaving and decided to take the plunge and buy a nice skein of yarn called for in the pattern. Afterall, it’s gift right? I picked out a beautiful red skein of yarn and left the shop. By the time I got home I was in full buyer’s remorse mode. How could I spend $15 for 1 skein of yarn! Was I nuts! I don’t spend this much on yarn for me!
I talked to my friend Monique, who crochets, about it and she said she never spends that much on yarn for someone else. It should be a treat for yourself. That did it for me. The first chance I got I took the yarn back and went to Michael’s for something more in my budget. I settled on a mustard colored skein of Wool-Ease Thick & Quick yarn (yes, again!) and went to work.
The scarf turned out great! If, and when, I make this scarf again, I will go down in needle size because the stitches weren’t as tight as I would have liked. I also want to try it again using the yarn suggested in the pattern. It will be a nice gift for me.
At any rate, it was worth all the drama. My aunt loved it and loved how soft is was. As she got ready to leave she mentioned how she’s going to buy a new coat to match her new scarf. She also mentioned she would need two more in blue and purple to match the rest of her coats. I had another Green Apple Scarf on hand, made from the original denim blue yarn, so I handed it over to keep me in her good graces.
