Monday, December 19, 2011

Fibonacci Squared Men's Scarf


One of the best parts of being a designer who isn't afraid of ripping out is trying new knitting methods. When I was at my last knitting social at Mary's Yarns in my home town of Unionville, Ontario, Karen Cooper was kind enough to tell me about the scarf she was knitting. It was a method completely new to me, the linen method. In order to add ease to her project, Karen was using circular needles but knitting straight, so as only to knit on the right side. I was awe struck as she was taking scraps of yarn and making a multi-coloured scarf that had the appearance of being weaved, not knit. I bought yarn that same week and decided to try pairing the new method with my love of math. Thus was the impetus behind my Fibonacci Men's Scarf pattern.


As I was working out Fibonacci Sequence in excel I decided it just did not have enough math in it yet.

So I squared it! This accordingly also gave me a much better name for the finished product - the Fibonacci Squared Men's Scarf.

As with all my projects, even those using organic yarn, I have to pre-wash the yarn.  I don’t have a ball winder, so left to own devices I came up with this method.  


The yarn for this project is 3 balls Mirasol Samp’a 100% Naturally Dyed Organic Cotton Walnut, 2 balls Mirasol Samp’a 100% Naturally Dyed Organic Cotton Natural, and 2 balls Marks & Kattens Skal International certified100% Eco-Cotton Cream.  I purchased the yarn at Romni Wools.  


I used a long tail cast on and knit the scarf horizontally rather than vertically.  The pattern has the Fibonacci sequence running both horizontally and vertically, which meant stitch markers.


Since as I said in my earlier blog post, I don’t swatch, after several rows I did a provisional cast off to see how long the scarf was going to be.  



Looked rather like a snake come to think of it.  I'm glad it is just yarn!

After undoing my 100s of sts to get the garment back on my knitting needles, I began rethinking my dislike of swatches.  However, not swatching won and I continued on.  


One of my favorite things to do while knitting is to watch movies.  Sometimes this gets me in trouble.  While not paying attention I was half way through a row when I ran out of yarn.   


This of course lead to more knitting backwards since I really didn’t want to have any weaving in to do at the end, especially given the simplicity of the linen method. 

Finally I was on a roll.

And after 3 short weeks, my Fibonacci Squared Men’s Scarf was completed, ready for sale, and the pattern checked and double checked and waiting to be typed up for sale.

1 comment:

  1. Your intellect is dizzying! But I like the finished product!

    ReplyDelete