Happy New Year!

Hello:

We have been having the most gorgeous clear cold days.  I'm not quite finished posting the Days for my 2014 Advent Calendar Scarf, but maybe I will finish that up tomorrow.

I have been having such a wonderful 2 weeks of break.  All my kids were home.  Pookie left today to go back to school, but Moogie and Himes are still home for another week. 

Along with working like a crazy person on the 2014 Advent Calendar Scarf, I have started a double knit scarf.  Truespark and Jitteryknitter gifted me a pattern for the There and Back Again Story Scarf by Frivolite Handcrafts.  This is a double knit scarf in laceweight yarn that tells the story of the Hobbit.

Along with the 2014 Advent Calendar Scarf, I am knitting this story scarf for my NEWT in the HPKCHC.  A NEWT is an "Advanced Studies" project that should take 3 - 4 months to complete.  Although I finished the Advent Calendar Scarf in one month, there were enough hours of knitting to easily last 2 months.  I just worked non-stop on it. 

There and Back Again might take even more time.  There are over 800 rows in the charts.  I figure if I knit 10 rows a day, I will finish by the deadline.  I am trying really hard over break though, to get ahead, and knit more than just the required 10.  This will give me some breathing room.

The actual knitting in a double knit project isn't that tough.  Because I hold my yarn in the Continental method, in my left hand, I just hold both colors.

Then I pick the color I need.  Anything knit will show up on the front and all purled stitches will show up on the back.  Of course, when I am on the wrong side, everything is reversed.  That is definitely the biggest challenge.  Not only do I have to read the charts left to right, but I have to think of the colors reversed.  When I see a dark square, I have to use the light color, and vice versa for the light squares.  I try to tell myself "Main Color" and "Contrast" instead of dark and light so I don't go crazy.  I have had to tink a bit because I forgot whether I was on the right or wrong side of the scarf.

Another trick I am using to help make this easier is the different colored stitch markers.  Since I don't have very sophisticated software, I used my Paint program to take a screen shot of the pattern.  Then I drew lines in black and red every 5 squares/stitches.  The green stitch markers correspond with the black lines, and the pink markers correspond with the red lines.  This really helps me know where I am in a row.  There are 90 stitches/squares in each row, so it is easy to lose my place.  The stitch markers and lines help me find my place quickly.

I also have only one row of the chart showing at any time.  I put the pattern up on my screen, then close up the window so I can just see the row I am on.  I enlarge the pattern as much as possible so the row takes up one width of my screen.  This helps my old eyes.  But I still need help with seeing the tiny stitches, so I have been wearing my magnifying glasses.  They help a ton.

So far I have finished 1 full chart, and am about half way through the 2nd chart.  There are 11 charts.

The first chart includes Bilbo's hobbit hole, the path, and most of the tree.

O, I forgot to say that I am using Cascade Alpaca Lace for the yarn.  I bought this yarn from Cultured Purls in Issaquah during their Going Out of Business Sale.  I planned to use it for an Advent Calendar Scarf some day, but I have decided that I like that scarf knit in fingering weight better than in lace weight.  So I am ending the year and starting this new year by knitting from stash.

Peace,
f1bercat
shaping the planet with a Hobbit's Journey