Twisted and Dropped

I decided that it was time for me to try other stitches in knitting (besides the basic knit and purl stitches) because eventually I’d like to do more complicated knitting. I had most of a skein left of some purple yarn and thought that I could use it for a scarf using stitches I haven’t used before. Looking in a knitting book, I thought I’d try a purse stitch that used a yarn over and purl two together repeatedly that seemed easy enough. I found some videos online and tried the two different stitches and they didn’t seem too difficult.

[Sigh.] Yet somehow I kept messing up, maybe ten or fifteen rows into the scarf I would realize that I didn’t have the same number of stitches that I had casted on with and then I would start over because it was frustrating to try to find out where I went wrong. I didn’t count how many failed attempts I had, but it was many times and eventually I just had to give up. [Yes, I’m a quitter. (Pause.) Or I just like to think I’m a realist—I’ll give up on a losing battle and live to fight another day.] On the upside I did practice a lot of yarn overs and purl two together stitches (which was the ultimate goal to learn new stitches even though sadly I have nothing tangible to show for my efforts).

So starting over, I decided that I would try something simpler that would not require me to increase and decrease the number of stitches. Looking at a knitting book I chose a twisted drop stitch combined with a simple garter stitch, and this was much easier for me to accomplish. I liked the visual interest the twisted dropped stitches added to the scarf and most of all I liked that I didn’t have to concentrate quite so hard.

I wanted my scarf to be fairly narrow (as I didn’t have a full skein of yarn and didn’t want an awkwardly short scarf), and added a fringe to complete the scarf. The edges that are a bit rough, but I’m glad that I practiced some new stitches and am motivated to learn more.