A knit along

The longest scarf starts with a single stitch!

Copyright © Cheryl Coville 2011

We know that January 1^st is generally recognized as the start to a new year but we’ve always felt September was more appropriate. After a summer of rest and relaxation, it seems fitting to start anew in the fall. Maybe it’s a legacy of those delicious first days of school.

We thought we’d do something fun to celebrate the start of the fall season and we’d be delighted if you’d like to come along for the ride.

We’ve always liked samplers and we’ve seen some cool ones for embroidery stitches and for shawls knitted in fancy lace patterns. However, we’ve been knitting men’s socks lately and we’ve noticed there are an awful lot of really beautiful (we mean handsome!) stitch patterns that men will like. Not a yarn over or a lacy hole in sight. (We’ve been told that men don’t generally appreciate The Lace….or fancy colours, for that matter. Men can be boring that way ….. to knit for, that is.)

We thought we’d like to make a nice, warm scarf to give to some nice guy this Christmas.  How ‘bout a sampler scarf?  The Papa Bear Sampler Scarf, to be precise. We’ve scoured our stitch dictionaries and we’ve come up with a really nifty assortment of pattern stitches ….. stitches that only require knitting and purling, so they’re not difficult at all but stitch patterns that result in interesting texture. This will give us a chance to try them out on a small scale and add them to our repertoire.

We may even do cables.  That way we can get used to cabling without a cable needle.  New stitches AND a new technique. Cool!

So, here’s the deal. We’ll begin our Papa Bear Sampler Scarf  on the day after Labour Day…..Tuesday, September 6, 2011.  That gives us 2 weeks to get ready. We’ll cast on that day and there will be a different patterned section each week for 12 weeks. That means, we’ll cast off on Tuesday, November 29, 2011. It won’t be much knitting each week but by December 1^st, we’ll have finished a scarf for one lucky man on our gift list.

Each pattern stitch will be written out in words and, if we can manage it, we’ll try to provide a chart as well.

If you’d like to join in, you’ll need about 400 to 500 metres/yards of fingering weight wool (sock yarn would work just fine). You will need to have made a swatch of stockinette for the sole purpose of finding the right size needle for you. Grandma Coco’s found that a 5 mm (8 US) needle is giving her the loosey-goosey drape she was going for. We want the scarf to be squooshy and soft and warm. It will be generous in size…about 9 inches wide by 72 inches long….more or less….you know how Grandma Coco rolls.

This is the kind of project we like…. Lots of interesting small steps that lead painlessly but inevitably to success.  Feel free to join us! And if you have any questions, just ask away in the comments or email us directly at grandmacocosdesigns@gmail.com