Turning 40

No, not me. Although it's now changed from "in a few years" to "in a couple of years". My SIL, my husbands brother's wife, she of the felted clog shredding feet, turned 40 a few weeks ago. I had decided a long time ago that for the occasion, I wanted to knit her a really nice scarf. A perfect red scarf. So the hunt for the perfect red in the perfect fibre was on, at the Kitchener-Waterloo Knitters Fair I found my yarn. At the Spun Fibre Arts booth there was the perfect red laceweight, baby alpaca from Diamond Yarns. My Mom and SIL both agreed it was just the right red for Joanne, so I bought it.



I knew that I was either going to knit Anne Hanson's Fiddlehead scarf or her Alhambra, both scarves from her Little Nothings collection that she adds to at an unbelievable rate. I decided on Fiddlehead and thought that I could knit it up pretty quickly. I was mostly right. I started knitting with the suggested 3.25mm needles and after 2 repeats decided that I didn't like the look of the fabric (too loosey-goosey) so I ripped it out and started again on 3.00mm, much better.



The pattern called for 39 repeats of the 8 (if my recall is correct) row pattern. So when I was approaching that milestone after a very respectable amount of time I was very excited. I laid it out on the floor and pinned it out. It was short. Very short. Dissappointingly short. I guess the smaller needles and what I can only believe is a finer laceweight than Anne used was making me have to knit more. A lot more. I had a very decent size ball of my yarn left, so I though, I'll just knit until it's done. Well, as fun as this was to knit. That may have killed me.



The pattern was easy, memorizable and very pretty. But, after about 50 repeats the scarf was starting to look like it would be long enough and I was starting to feel like I was done knitting fiddleheads. I pinned it out again and decided that 60 repeats would do just fine. Even though I had more yarn left than I wanted.



I love this scarf. It's light and airy and the stitch pattern is just perfect. It's a good thing it's red (not my colour) or I would be tempted to keep it for myself.



I've been writing this post for about 2 weeks now, my browser kept freezing up after a couple of sentences and I was getting really frustrated. But finally, it's done. In the mean time I have also finished my CPH and two more pairs of felted clogs. So hopefully I will get another post out in a few days. And, I have started Gytha. I'm in love.

So there you have it.

Fiddlehead scarf by Anne Hanson
Diamond Luxury yarns Baby alpaca laceweight
Knitpicks 3.0mm circular needle
Pattern calls for 39 repeats, I did 60.