#knitting colorwork

Volume three is color knitting! And, as usual, Vogue Knitting has given us a well designed books with complex techniques that mostly show a sense of taste. (Crocheters can play along on this book, btw.)

I don't know colorwork, so naturally I'm making G'raha Tia's Endwalker scarf. Oh, and I'm also primarily a crocheter, so let's plan to knit it instead.

I have no self control when inspiration strikes, and also I like to learn by doing, so here we are - this'll be my journey.

Step 1: Screenshot the hell out of Raha

Can we talk a moment about how strange this scarf design is? Not the colorwork, but the actual structure of this strange piece of material.

The main center design drapes down from his right shoulder to his left, then down the front, but then the opposite length somehow wraps, then pivots to turn right back down the same shoulder. There's gotta be a button or something, and even with the twine or rope that's clearly keeping everything together, I can't figure out the full construction of this one. If inspo strikes along the way we'll see, but for now I think I plan to just make a full scarf, and worst case, it can be knotted on the the left shoulder to create the effect where the two length drape down the same side in the front and back.

We can make it work. But, darling, your scarf makes no sense.

Step 2: Study the design, draft, re-draft, rinse repeat

I'm not accustomed to making my own graph patterns, or patterns in general, but I guess the concept is what it is. Make the thing into pixels and color code?

I got to work in Excel, copy & pasted. Compared it to the scarf, and tried again. Then once I figured out the general shape, the hardest part was figuring out what repeat would work for both the bottom design and the main in order to have everything flow.

There will end up being quite the length of stockinette in grey between designs. I haven't yet figured out how far I want to go, so that's another thing we'll be winging.

My plan is to work the pattern in the round to create a scarf tube, so this can be two sided to account for some of the fabric waving I think is going on Once complete I can sew up the ends and add the fringe.

Step 3: Yarn and Go

I'm writing this having started the project already, so I think if I make this again in the future I might go down to a DK weight. The pattern is working, and I think it will be fine, but it will be a big scarf - somewhere between a scarf width and a shawl width. My pattern might end up a bit bigger than anticipated, overall. That said - I am using a value acrylic in worsted weight - JOANN's Big Twist in Titanium, Varsity Gold, and Black.

For the first few rows I was figuring out the tension for my floats, because while I did actually practice with a different yarn and needle size for a bit, who has time for swatching? Remember that jumping right into a project thing I like to do?

Yeah, I did that again.

LOVED that "fuck you, Seychelles your pride flag" trans egg explosion post, and had to make it a knit thing since.... Tapestry crochet is new to me.

Just stumbled on this tonight - the Two Handed Fair Isle Technique. I've always hated and despised floats. My tension on pieces I've done with colorwork has always been wretched, and that's half the reason I work almost exclusively in double-knitting for colorwork.