Cowly Scarf Comes to Life

One False Start

Circular needles and the Way I Learned to Knit

As a youngster of five, my mom taught me to knit in what I know now is called the "Throw" method and involves letting go of the right hand needle to draw the yarn over the stitch. This method is the only one I had ever known and so when I began to knit Cowly Scarf it is the stitch I used on new circular needles. It was hard; the pattern I developed proved very simple and easy to do so the problem was in my technique.

I saw a young woman knitting on a tv show and she never let go of her needles to move yarn around and she knitted so dang fast I nearly couldn't follow her hands. Determined to find this  interesting technique, I went web crawling.

Enter Continental Stitch. This method/style of knitting involves controlling the yarn with  my left hand, just like crocheting at which I was pretty good, and dipping the right needle to pick up and then transfer the stitch. Quick, neat, easy peasy, efficient, unknown to me at.all. So I begin to try it. Took me no time at all to realize why sport coaches would rather have a child who'd never held a tennis racket than one who has developed habits. Oh boy, did  Fingers not want to do anything other than what they had learned fifty years ago, never mind what Brain instructed them to do.

Dropping stitches and trying to retrieve them mostly unsuccessfully and becoming frustrated day after day, I worked at Cowly in the stumbling way I knew. At the end of a week I had the progress you see above. A Week !~! Ormond asked if crocheting and quilting weren't enough and maybe I could get thru life without learning to knit well. I pondered that for a bit, frogged Cowly and found a 3.75mm 5/F steel crochet hook and began again with the same pattern only with my trusty friend, Boye. In less than two full days I had a completed piece and she looked just as I had seen her in my dreams.

  

Her V-shape is unmistakable here 

Here I am working the edging that went all the way from one corner of the V edge to the other to help stop the rolling. The next photo shows her pinned and dampened to Block.

I am very happy with the way she turned out-just as I saw in my vision. I have written up the pattern-it's very simple. If interested, leave me a comment or send an email and I will get it to you. After blocking, she drapes just perfectly and feels so luxurious next to my almost always cold neck.

Mmmmmm. Soft fingering merino wool from a lady on Knitting Paradise forum. Sah-weet.