The Adventures of Treenah (complete)

Treenah is finished! And what a journey it was. Before I get into the long saga, let me just say that I love this scarf, and the pattern! Thank you to Megan Marshall for creating such a great pattern!

First, the pictures.



This is the yarn I tried to do it in at first. I've spoken a little about it already in this post, and my difficulties with crochet in this post. Once I got over my initial difficulties with crochet (although I'm still having trouble with gauge in general), the actual making of the scarf went by really fast. However, this happened:



That's supposed to be the same dyelot. Yup. So as those were the only two balls I had of that yarn, I gave up totally sick of it, ripped it out, and started again with another yarn. I was not going to let this scarf beat me! After that, it took only a few days to finish.



And here's me wearing it (indoors with a t-shirt on :)



And here's my wig head wearing it:



The yarn I used was a random acrylic from my stash, but it opened and flattened out nicely after washing it and laying it out flat. I made the middle part a bit longer, because of the way I like to wear scarves, and only 'cast on' (however you say that in crochet-speak) 33 (stitches) because of my gauge. This was again what I would call a DK weight yarn, but I'm learning that there are apparantly two different types of DK, and this would probably be called worsted in America.

It's really warm and lovely to wear, and I'm very happy with this scarf. I would definitely make it again, and may well do :)

Still working on the WIPs

I'm getting further along in my 3 projects. Stargazer just needs to be blocked and sewed, but I'm procrastinating. I don't know why. But I'm NOT letting myself cast on another sweater till its finished. Otherwise it'll sit there for ages till the next one needs sewed too. I know what I'm like :)



My garter stitch shawl is now 42" along the top. It still needs more though. I'm not even counting how many stitches I have cos it'll depress me. One row now takes AGES, but it's good for watching subtitled Japanese series with. I've been watching Egao no Hosuko and At Home Dad - I have to admit, I have a somewhat serious crush on Abe Hiroshi - swoon!



And I'm halfway through Treenah! It's actually really fast once you get going, and the lace pattern is quite easy to remember. I went up a hook size at the lace part, to make it more drapey, and also to widen it, cos the lace pulls in more than the treble crochet. It's still a little thinner, so when I make this again (which I think I will, defintely, it's such a great pattern!), I might make the middle part thinner then increase the stitch count at the lace part. This picture is of the first half blocking out, cos I wanted to see how it blocked. I'm using a 80% acrylic, 20% wool yarn, cos I didn't read the pattern properly before I bought it, and didn't realise it would need blocked. It blocks out fine with just wet blocking though, although maybe one day I'll iron it out or something. It doesn't really need it though. The only thing was that it was hard to stretch out and I'm not sure if it'll stay stretched. A wool yarn would probably be easier to stretch and stay blocked.

Crochet is hard :(

So, I've done all the main knitting for Stargazer, all I need to do is make the band round the middle and sew it all up. But after all that stocking stitch, I just couldn't face sewing as well, so I did some more on Treenah. The new way of crocheting seems to be coming a little easier now, it actually feels weird when I pick up the yarn my old way, like it feels missing from around my little finger. So that's a good sign. But my gauge is way off. And not in a normal way either (really, if I have to have a problem, it has to be a weird problem!) My stitch count is less than the pattern, so for that I should use a smaller hook, but my row gauge is more than the pattern, so for that I should be using a bigger hook to compensate. Sigh. I think I'll try with a bigger hook, and maybe omit a pattern repeat.

Just a thought - is my yarn too big maybe? I'm using what is a normal DK weight yarn for here (Scotland in general) but maybe DK is slightly different for American yarns (cos you know, nothing could possibly be the same in both countries!) Hee, can you tell I'm a bit annoyed?

I really want to make this scarf. I'm going to try use the other ball of this yarn that I have with a bigger hook and see what it's like. If I decide it looks better then this will be the fourth time I retry this, but I don't care. I want my Treenah! It's getting to be a bit of a vendetta now, me against crochet. But I will win. And Treenah shall be my prize! (mad cackle) :)