Monday, April 29, 2013

Magrathea

My first time going to my local yarn store in Evanston I became enamored with a skein of Madelinetosh Merino Light in the color Logwood.  I looks like this single ply yarn has just a dusting of color applied after the yarn was spun with a slightly white core.  I have no idea how the dye job worked, but the coloration is stunning.  


Ever since I first tried the Hitchhiker Scarf, I have wanted to knit more of Martina Behm's designs.  At long last, it is time for me to knit Magrathea


I chose to knit the scarf/shawl (this is going to count for my 13 in 2013 after all!) on size 4 (3.5 mm) knitting needles.  This is a little bigger than the pattern requires (3.0 mm), but I wanted to be able to knit it with my harmony circular set rather than using straight needles.  I do love my round needles!  


There were some issues with the set up chart where there weren't enough stitches to do the number of decreases illustrated (row 19 and one row much earlier on that I didn't make a note of.)  Maybe I made an error farther down... but row 17 was knit perfectly.  Initially, I omitted the first SSK in row 19 and turned the K3tog in row 21 to a K2tog, but the lace didn't look right. Looking more closely at the lace, I realized that the extra stitch is before the first SSK of row 19. (3 rather than 4 sts)  I backtracked to move the placement of the YO, and then reknit 21 also turning the K4 into a K3.    I really think I must have messed something up somewhere... I am still 1 stitch short for the beginning of the body chart.  I therefore changed the second SSK into a K stitch to regain the stitch I lost.  (JUST ON THE FIRST REPEAT!)  I think everything should be fixed now.  

 
I need to keep track of yardage to know when I am close to 25% remaining.  
  • 100 g before casting on.  I will need 25 g to finish the scarf.  
  • 88 g remain after 6 repeats of body chart.  
  • In the 10th repeat of the body chart, I count 73 sts after row 7. (After row 8, 78 g remain.)  I should really count on row 7 of the 11th repeat (since you're supposed to do one more after 3 away from 25) - 77 sts remain.  If I am still 1 stitch short at the end of Round 25 (or wherever I need to stop) then I can just add a pfb at the end of the first edging row.  
  • 65 g remain after 15 repeats.  
  • 55 g remain after 18 repeats.  
  • 47 g remain after 20 repeats. 
  • 39 g remain after 22 repeats.  
  • 36 g remain after row 7 of repeat 23.  (125 sts)  I'm still 1 stitch off from being divisible by 6, so I haven't lost any more sts.  (This is a good thing!)
  • 31 g remain after 24 rows.  
  • 133 sts after row 7 of repeat 25.  I would need to decrease 1 st to make it divisible by 6.  27 g remain.  I am going to go to the end of the shawlette here and decrease one stitch with a P2tog lined up with the lace edge (just after the marker) in the p'd across row.    
  • 21 g remain after the completion of Edging Chart I.  
  • 15 g remain after row 8 of Edging Chart II.  
  • 8 g remain before bindoff.  
  • 7 g remain when I'm all done!

It has been very interesting knitting the same lace in two directions.  I have enjoyed this a lot!  Too bad it isn't simple enough to memorize the pattern (like Hitchhiker), but it was still quite a great knit.  I cannot wait to make another.  I also cannot wait to use Madelinetosh Merino Light yarn again.   Too bad I'm currently on a yarn diet...


In pictures, it is a little hard to tell the difference between the two sides of the scarf, however the directionality is more apparent in person.  Still, I took closeups of the two ends of the scarf (above) and the center point (below) so you could get a sense of how it looks if you should knit this project yourself.