Nothing Like

It doesn't take much to encourage me. A few admiring comments and I am all over this like Quaker on oats. I started on My Sister's Scarf. (Note the emphasis on "my." It modifies "scarf.") I made a design decision to go with one color for the beads - the pseudo-hematite (well, it can't be real hematite, they're glass).

I strung my 270 beads (actually 280, just in case. Taking as a rule of thumb the number of needle sizes up from the suggested gauge, I cast on using a US size 8/5 mm needles (she went from a US 1 to a US 6).

And started fudging and swearing my way through the pattern. It's one of those that make sense if you already know how to do what she's telling you to do, but if you're not sure and you don't speak knitting in her particular idiom (that is, if you are me) the only thing to do is start knitting. Trying to read the pattern and just figure it out are not going to work.

It turns out it's pretty simple. Two rows of garter stitch and one 2 row pattern stitch where the pattern creates a dropped stitch. I have done this before, just not the way she does it. The double wrap is the same, it's the way she drops the stitch. The pattern says to unwrap one strand and knit the remaining, now a single very long stitch. I think it's way easier to insert you're needle under the two wraps, knit the front leg of the stitch and slip the whole thing off in one motion. Just sayin'.

That, however, is not the real issue. After knitting a couple repeats ( it's only 30 stitches wide) I came upon a fundamental difference in vision. One that has nothing to do with whatever variations there may be in knitting vernacular. Each complete pattern repeat/4 rows only works out to about an inch. The pattern calls for adding beads to only the first and last 9 pattern repeats. Do you understand what that means? Only the ends are beaded. I want the whole scarf to have beads. And I do not want an 18 inch scarf. This is more that poo-tay-to, po-tah-to. This is more than po-tay-to, pomme de terre. This is po-tay-to, asparagus. Possibly po-tay-to, pomegranate.

I believe the phrase we're looking for here is, "Oh, snap." I have to do some Math. I have to swatch.

Then I have to string a lot more beads.