Weekend Knitting

It was soooooo hot this past weekend in L.A. I had to be in Glendale Saturday morning and it was 103 degrees by 10 am! Ugh! Please bring back June Gloom. I’m not ready for a full-on summer heat attack quite yet!!! Our hottest months are usually August and September. What happened?

Anyway, most of my weekend was spent in front of the fan, windows open to let a minor breeze in. It was just too hot and sticky to knit with anything other than cotton or ribbon. I whipped up a couple of “Shape It Scarves” from Sally Melville’s “Book 1: The Knit Stitch.” One is made from ribbon yarn in pinks and lime green called “Party” from Crystal Palace. The other is a cotton tape yarn in aqua by Berroco called Zen . I crocheted a small border on the aqua scarf with some multi-colored Egyptian cotton from my stash and then finished it off with a picot edge in aqua.

Both scarves are gifts for my cousin, Myrna. Her b-day is in early July, mine is in mid-July. We usually don’t exchange gifts, but I admired a gorgeous handbag she recently purchased. It looks like a Bottega Veneta basket weave bag in black. It’s a knock-off, of course. Myrna said that she really isn’t that crazy about the bag and she’d give it to me for my b-day if I’d make her a scarf. Deal. I know that Myrna bought the bag at a high-end boutique….not on Santee Alley, so she did spend a bit on it. I made her these two scarves and will probably knit her one more.

This “Shape It Scarf” is so easy. It’s all garter stitch on circular needles with increases for a few inches. After you have the proper amount of increases to establish the shape of the scarf, you cast on 50-80 stitches on each end to create the ties for the scarf, knit for a few more inches and then cast off. Sally Melville suggests that you iron the hell out of this scarf to flatten it and make it into a drapey fabric. It’s a great design, extremely versatile, beautiful and useful. I’ve added a crocheted edge on a few of the versions I’ve made. I always get compliments when I wear this Melville scarf!