New Beginnings

A new day, a new start on the drop stitch scarf. Trying to put the horrendous catastrophe of the scarf behind me, I chose this pattern from my wish list and cast on today. The picture of the finished scarf is gorgeous!

So far so good! I think I like the look better anyway. I tried this pattern back in December with some ribbon yarn, but frogged it, not because of the pattern, but because I had trouble with the yarn. It was a ladder yarn and my needles kept getting caught in wrong places. My only trouble with this yarn is that the nylon content keeps snagging on my embarrassingly rough hands. I suppose that's my cue to get some better lotion or use more of it...

Drop Stitch Gone Horribly Wrong

Today was a sad day, but it started really well. I finished my Hufflepuff hat last night and was on my way to finishing the drop stitch scarf ("Magic Scarf") this evening. Two projects done in two days! That almost never happens. The scarf is for charity too (I rarely keep anything I knit) and will be part of our fall fundraiser for Stitch for a Cause. Now, I've never done a drop stitch scarf but have been eager to try this pattern. I thought I followed everything to the "t" and it looked pretty good after I had cast off. You can see the stitches on the left starting to run down the length of the scarf (as they are supposed to).

Now, the first problem I had was that at the second to last row, I was supposed to purl a stitch then drop the next. This was little freaky, but it went fine until the end of the row. I was supposed to be left with 21 stitches, but found I had 22. I decided to knit the last two together and bind off on the next row according to the pattern. Didn't seem like a big deal. I would have a row next to the edge that wouldn't drop, but I didn't think it would be very noticeable. As I started to pull my scarf lengthwise, you can see the dropped stitches running just like they should.

Then things started to go wrong...really wrong. In a few spots, I got big loops of yarn that seemed knitted o.k., but were just REALLY loose. I figured I had just knit a stitch too loosely. As I continued to pull on the scarf and use my fingers to help the dropped stitches, it looked very pretty, but I noticed some of the other rows that were not supposed to drop, starting to come loose. Ahh! What was happening? So I stopped pulling and laid it on the table again. This is what I had.

I felt sick. All I could do at this point was frog the whole thing. I am planning to knit the scarf again, but may use a different drop stitch pattern. I'm sure it was something I did wrong in first rows, but since I'm not sure what... Part of my problem came from working with a slippery yarn, so the next time I try it, I'll try a different yarn. In the meanwhile, I'll go back to knitting more hats...sniff...