Saturday, October 31, 2009

More Picots, Please

When I first became aware of the Landscape pattern I only knew it as a huge shawl, not a scarf. As a shawl, I had zero interest in the pattern...endless stockinette, endless seed and moss stitch... ick. Then Marissa the Marvelous started knitting the scarf version. She was using lots of Koigu millends, some of which I had enabled the purchasing. I'm a good friend like that.

We were having coffee one afternoon and she was knitting away on it. I had never done picots before and was a little fascinated by them.
The pattern calls for picots on every other row. Marissa, who thinks that more embellishment is always better, was putting them on every row. I too became a little obsessed.

She kindly and trustingly let me wear her scarf one afternoon. I loved it. She pried it out of my hands before we parted company. And I began planning my own.

I dug into my cache of millends and selected a bunch to mix together. I started knitting, randomly switching yarn and using a Russian join for the transitions. Love that Russian join!!
Mine also had to have a bazillion picots. Knitting them is so much fun! Particularly in Koigu, because you are always looking to see what color they are going to be. This is one time where surprise in knitting is a wonderful thing.
I love my little scarf...so jaunty...so insouciant! My friend, Suzanne, thought it was pretty cool, so I made on for her too. I cannot wait for her birthday! This time I upped the needle size a smidge and hers has better drape.
You would think that after all these picots that I would be done. You would be wrong...Bring'em on! I have been eyeballing the Boneyard Shawl's (Rav Link) picot edged version for some beautiful alpaca lace weight that I scored at Rhinebeck. Now I just need to be disciplined enough to get my Christmas knitting done before I cast on. I'll let you know how that goes...






4 comments:

Mindy said...

Gorgeous! Gorgeous! And the scarf is great too. ;-) And I understand the need for some Christmas knitting discipline. I'm needing a little discipline to get through some of my baby projects!

Anonymous said...

Such a cute scarf! And it looks great on you. Have fun with your picot-lovin' self!

Mariss said...

They both look fabulous! I love that we enable each other, next you'll be adding beads and fringe ;) Suzanne is a lucky friend!

Joyce across the Pond said...

Hi, I have just stumbled upon your blog....I love the triangular scarf...where, oh where, can I get a pattern? Or just the principle of the triangle....the picots I have in a great book called 'Decorative Knitting' which is full of embellishments!
Joyce Stewart, Northern Ireland