Another good-bye to Classic Elite Liberty Wool

All of Classic Elite yarn is discontinued now that the company has folded. I’ve already discussed how much I wish it were not so. I’ve been working through some of my stash of Classic Elite recently, including their workhorse superwash worsted, Liberty Wool. It is, or was I guess, surprising yarn. It could even be a challenge to be sure you got the same colorway when buying multiple variegated balls for a project because, depending on where in the sequence the skein was wound, the balls would look quite different.

These four balls of Colorway 7581 wouldn’t have been my first choice in colors. But choices are very limited these days, if you do happen to find some still available. And 60% off made me more accepting of that St. Patrick’s Day green with the browns.

7581 turned into Molly, by Susan Mills Knits. A friend remarked that this Molly will go with any color coat. True. And folks will see you coming!

Molly’s a big fav of mine. Check out others I’ve knit here and here.

I won’t spill the beans in case you decide to knit Molly. But prepare yourself for a FOUR row pattern. Yep. Four rows, over and over and over. The scarf is reversible. But each side of the ruffle is different. And the sides are flipped along the ribbed spine of the scarf.  There are hints on Ravelry about how to read your knitting on this pattern and most of them involve marking right sides or wrong sides. That didn’t do anything for me. The “trick” to keeping your place in this pattern, which consists of two repeated rows followed by another two repeated rows, is to remember: if the ruffle you’re looking at has 2 ridges, work a row 1. If the ruffle you’re looking at has 4 ridges, work a row 2. And don’t forget that rows 2 and 3  aren’t done until you work across the entire width of the scarf. I know that won’t make any sense until you purchase the pattern and give it a try, but it really does tame Molly’s short rows.

I also still had 2 balls remaining of Colorway 7824, acquired in the same 60% off sale as my Molly yarn.

This colorway interested me more, at least from what I could see on the outside of the balls. Everyone who’s a color persnicketee buying this yarn knows to gently poke around in the center of the ball to see what colors are hiding within. Honestly, I didn’t much care. Let it be a surprise.

And it was:

How’d all that blue and green hide out in that center? I think it livens up the skein quite remarkably.

These mittens are another Susan Mills Knits pattern: Mitered Mittens. They are knit in one piece beginning with the cuff. The seams are sewn along the outside of the hand and around the pointed top and on the inside of the thumb. Either mitten fits either hand because the thumb gusset is worked on the side.

The large size is a perfect fit for me. And if the random variegated Liberty Wool doesn’t strike your fancy, try a self-striping worsted. I didn’t have any in my stash, but some of the striped versions of this mitten look great.

Liberty Wool

This is Helene Rush’s Bowties Scarf, knit in Classic Elite’s multi-colored Liberty Wool. It’s a superwash worsted. Two skeins of two separate colorways create this interesting piece. In fact, if you knit a third section in another colorway, you’d end up able to mix-and-match for additional looks. That’s what a new knitting friend of mine is planning after meeting my Bowties in person.

This photo explains.

These aren’t knitted centipedes having a rumble. These are the individual halves of the scarf. Here are the halves curled up into flower blooms.

Set out in these photos my guess is that you’ve figured out just how easy a knit this garter stitch cutie is.

Let’s put it back together, matching up each tab in one strip with its twin tab in the other strip. I’ve found that a square knot works best.

Here’s one I made in two different colorways about five years ago. It’s such a good knitting idea, don’t you think? And Liberty Wool really makes it pop. But you could knit it out of any interesting color-changing yarn. Or even out of two (or one) solid colors. Or try a color-changing yarn on one side and a solid on the other. Check out the Ravelry project pages to see what the knitting universe has come up with.

I recently came into a cache of Liberty Wool multi when a favorite shop closed. So unfortunate. But the shop’s owner deeply discounted her yarns and I drank deeply at the well.

Meet Molly.

You’ve met Good Golly Miss Molly on my blog once before. We marveled at how the heck this four-row pattern ends up looking so cool. Some have likely felt a bit miffed at paying six dollars for a four-row pattern. (Actually, I have the Classic Elite booklet that includes Molly so my investment was much less per pattern-row.) But, really, could any of us have figured out how to make this happen out of a piece of what’s basically colorful fat string? Susan Mills is the knitting world genius who figured it out.

I enjoy the way the ruffles can be wound up. In fact, it’s a great way to store Molly.

Molly’s two halves on either side of the center ridges are not the same. One side is squared up near the ridge and the other one is pointy. If the scarf is folded along its top spine, the flopped-over (then-public) side will match the bottom half. It’s hard to explain but very easy to knit. And by the time you’re done with this scarf you will be a short-row wiz.

Here’s my best hint to free yourself from consulting the pattern except for a few repeats. It works as long as you can easily count ridges to be sure you don’t end up with a fat (or skinny) ruffle.  Knit a row 1 if you see two ridges as you start the row. Knit a row 3 if you see 4 ridges. Others have also emphasized that it’s important to mark the “right hand side” of the work. By that, they mean, the right (as you look at your work) rather than the left side. I did that. But it’s not needed if you just count the ridges as you start a row.

We knitters owe so much to Classic Elite for its great yarns and wonderful patterns. I am already mourning that it “will be closing its doors in the very near future.” “Say it ain’t so, Joe.” But it’s so.

Good golly, Miss Molly

ruffle_scarf3

This is Susan Mills’s Molly Scarf. The pattern is part of Classic Elite’s booklet #9114. I don’t often knit patterns in exactly the yarn called for, but this superwash, worsted weight printed Classic Elite Liberty Wool seemed exactly right for this project. It was my first time using Liberty Wool. Good yarn. I’d definitely use it again.

Looking at the finished scarf in a shop, I couldn’t figure out how it was knit. Clearly short rows, but it just looked quite the mystery to me. I won’t spill the beans here. But prepare yourself for a FOUR row pattern. Yep. Four rows, over and over and over. The scarf is reversible. But each side of the ruffle is different. And the sides are flipped along the ribbed spine of the scarf.  This is a situation where one photo is definitely worth a bunch of words.

ruffle_scarf