Gift Wrap, Take Two

 

Back in 2017, my friend Christine gave me two skeins of yarn she had bought at Pembroke Farm, Prince Edward Island, while she and her family were in P.E.I. on vacation the summer before. I was quick to knit up most of the yarn into a shawl/wrap pattern. But then I found I had knitter's remorse on two counts. One, the shawl seemed to be such an awkward shape and length that I didn't like wearing it very much. Two, I had 60 grams of the yarn left over, which was not enough in itself to make anything, and I couldn't seem to find any yarn that coordinated with it. In 2020, I decided to take the wrap apart and knit a rectangular scarf that I would like better, and to use one with a repeating pattern that I could just knit until the yarn was gone.  

I searched Ravelry for a suitable scarf pattern and found the Duo Columns Reversible Scarf, designed by Quenna Lee. It's a nice-looking design, and is available for free. 

Here's the finished scarf, with both its sides on display. I thought this scarf design would look better fringed, and as I had plenty of yarn to work with, I went ahead and did so. When I had near the length I wanted, I stopped knitting and fringed the cast-on edge, cut a second set of fringe lengths and set them aside, and then resumed knitting on the length. I worked until I had just enough to cast off with, finished the scarf, then added the fringe to the cast-off edge, with the result that I had no yarn left over. 

The completed scarf is 82" long, which is longer than I would normally make a scarf. I usually like them just worn singly around my neck, with the ends reaching my waist. The ends of this scarf reach to my knees when I wear it a single time around my neck. 

 

But then this is a scarf that looks best wrapped a few times around the neck anyway. 

I don't particularly like making or wearing big needle knits, but there's no denying that they make for gratifyingly quick and easy projects. It also made me smile to use my 9mm needles. Years ago I saw them in a Salvation Army thrift store priced at $1. I knew I didn't have a pair of 9mm straights, and I stood there for a few minutes, mentally debating buying them. With money so tight, I try never to buy anything unless I am sure that I will use it. At the time, I'd never used 9mm needles 35+ years of knitting, and perhaps I never would. But I told myself, "It is just a dollar, you'll never get a better deal, and if you don't buy them and should need 9mm needles at some point, you'll kick yourself because you'll wind up having to pay a lot more." I bought the needles, and then just three months later was delighted to find that a pattern I'd picked out called for them. This would be only the second or third time I've used these needles, but I'm still smugly satisfied that I made the right call that day. 

This project used up the 60 grams I had left over when I knit this yarn up the first time, so I'm going to count this project as having a net stash decrease of 60 grams.