Take one skein Noro Silk Garden Color #84. Mix with equal parts of Noro Silk Garden Color #228. Alternate colors every 2 rows. Work in knit one, purl one rib until you run out of yarn. Cook up on # 7 needles, here with 35 stitches. That’s the Jared Flood recipe for this scarf. You can knit this one with your eyes closed or your brain otherwise occupied. This is my third. Here are the other two:
Another Jared Flood two-colorway Noro scarf. This time, worked up in Silk Garden. Very yummy yarn of silk, kid mohair and lambswool. You do have to take out a mortgage to pay the yarn bill, but it is so worth it. Steve parks in Lot 20. His new coat has no hood and some special yarn seemed like a good idea. This scarf of many colors fits the bill.
This pattern and this yarn…surprises. If you can look at these two skeins and predict a scarf like the one above, you’re a “better man than I am, Gunga Din.”
Bazillions of knitters have learned that Noro yarns, with their long sections of colors, have some surprises other than the knots that are frequently encountered. Two different Noro colorways, in alternating sets of rows, interact with each other to produce cool striping. This is Noro Kureyon. Noro Silk Garden likely has a nicer drape and will be less scratchy. Any yarn with fairly long swaths of color will work similarly. The word is that almost any two Noro colorways will look just fine together. Part of my scarf turned out to be a rather bright blue with a major pink that I find quite unpleasant. But that section didn’t last long enough to ruin the look.
This particular version is Jared Flood’s way of doing it. Knit one purl one rib that almost comes out looking like stockinette. Skip the blocking. No need. The knitting is mindless and would be quite boring except that seeing how the next set of colors and the next and the next works out keeps a knitter moving forward with interest.
My plans are to make a few more. Including another one rather soon. Steve’s new winter coat has no hood and the walk in to work from Lot 20 is cold cold cold.
Jared Flood‘s wonderful new knitting book, “Made in Brooklyn,” is filled with updated classic designs. Some of them, like Quincy, seem inspired by Elizabeth Zimmermann (a knit designer Flood admires). The regular reader of my blog knows I admire EZ too. Quincy is constructed of garter stitch, “I-cord” borders (we are too politically correct to call them “idiot cords” anymore), and mobius construction. A mobius is a mathematical surface with only one side, formed by giving a half twist to a rectangular strip. Much of Flood’s work has a strong sense of sculpture. It will take even an experienced knitter a good bit of time to figure out how this was knitted. It is a wonderful pattern, knitted here in Lamb’s Pride Brown Sheep Bulky.
