Fluffy Purple Neck Ruffle Thingie

For those of you who are just dying for visible proof that knitting goes on here. This post has been kicking around in drafts for almost two years; the scarf itself has been lurking in the bottom of a box where I keep knitting oddments. I made it from what was left of the yarns for LittleBit’s purple scarf.



I did a provisional cast on of 11 sts, using a scrap of Mandarin Silk, and I reverted to the YO, K10 pattern for all odd rows and SSK, K9 for all even rows. This gave me the eyelet edge that was so stretchy and problematic on her scarf, but this time I had a plan...



I knit back and forth until I had just enough of the eyelash yarn left to do a three-needle bind-off. And then I made a trip to my favorite ribbon shop, conveniently located not far from where I used to live, for some French grosgrain ribbon. I found something better, instead; it picks up the flecks of yellow in the railroad yarn that I used.

I hope that Deb Gardner is one of my neighbors in the eternities! I have done business with her, off and on, for 20 years. I have taken only one class from her, but I intended to take more. She is a thoughtful and imaginative and patient teacher; I learned a lot that day, surrounded by chocolates and Broadway show tunes.

Deb had an amazing selection of ribbons and laces and passementerie and beads. She was my go-to woman when I beaded Firstborn’s wedding gown six years ago, when we designed our own beaded fringe for the bridesmaids’ dresses and the family dresses. Also when I improved the embellishments on LittleBit’s first (store-bought, at deep discount) formal for the Military Ball and made and beaded a wrap to go with it. If you needed this kind of stuff for any project, or just because it was pretty, this was the place to go. Lest you think that something awful has happened to Deb, breathe easy. She is very much alive. [She is also retiring and closing up shop at the end of this month. Deep sigh...]

So, this is what I bought:



And this is how it looks, threaded into the eyelets formed by all those YO’s:



And this is how it looks over a couple of silk and cashmere sweaters that I bought at August Max Woman. When there still was an August Max Woman. [Another deep sigh...] First, the purple sweater:



And then the black:



This is the link to the earlier post re: LittleBit’s scarf, with the specifics on the yarns mingled amongst all the verbiage.

If you’re looking for something a little less colorful, this is the lovely sleeve of the gracious woman on the train the other night. Stranded knitting, tidy little herringbones of cream over a cream-based tweed.



It bugged me that I didn’t know how much yarn I had used to make LittleBit’s Purple Fluffy Scarf, or how much for my Fluffy Purple Neck Ruffle Thingie. I wanted to document them on Ravelry.

But I had the leftover ladder yarn. And a digital scale. And an Excel spreadsheet, and my calculator here on the computer. And I got ’er done!

Of course, it took me the better part of an hour to weigh stuff and think it all through. Which meant that no cooking got done before church, for last night’s dinner guests. I did, however, make it to church [almost] on time.

We ended up having tuna sandwiches on Parmesan bread, cream of corn soup, carrot sticks, and lemon squares with pimiento garnish, all washed down with Raspberry Red Zinger iced herb tea, which I had had the forethought to set in the fridge before leaving for church.