Kindergarten Scarves

One of the lovely ladies I knit with regularly is a kindergarten teacher. A purer heart you will never encounter. She mentioned a while ago that some of her kids can't really afford proper winter wear, which is obviously a must in Edmonton. I thought that the least I could do was contribute a few scarves from some random and/or leftover wool I had. Knitting makes great scarves, but so does weaving, and it's waaaay faster. So I paired up some colours and picked some drafts from my Handweaver's Pattern Directory, and started. Four days later, four cool scarves for kindergarteners.


Thursday: I started with a simple neutral zig zag in browns. This is some leftover Knit Picks Wool of the Andes, and when I took it off the loom and washed it, it fluffed up a lot and made a super air-filled scarf. It will be warm, for sure. This one set the standard for the rest, with 10 epi, and aiming for about 6" wide and 50" long.


Friday: I tied this warp onto the last one, since it used the same threading and the same number of ends. I just did a different treadling for this one, also out of Wool of the Andes, and it made kind of a cool polka-dot almost-stripe thing. In the photo, on the left and center panels, you are looking at the front of the fabric. On the right you are seeing the back of the fabric. Similar but different. When I finished this one, I put a little more effort into fulling it when I washed it, and it ended up a very nice cohesive fabric.


Saturday: For the third one, I put together two great shades of green Cascade 220 - a searing apple green and a mellow teal - and, after rejecting several design possibilities, decided that nothing would do but to revisit the zig zag. I love how it looks in these two colours. The whole time I was weaving it, I wished it was for me. It makes me grin every time I look at it. There is something Kermit the Froggish about it, I think.


Sunday: Lastly, I pulled out two more skeins of Cascade 220 and did a variation of Hopsack with a two-colour warp and weft. I don't know the name of this pattern, but I've been wanting to weave it for a while. It's sort of a minimalist houndstooth or something. Anyway, I love the effect of the two-colour warp and weft, and also love these two colours together. I bought them ages ago to make a pair of herringbone mittens, but just never got around to it.

So that's the end of my Four Scarves in Four Days series. Of course, after I finished the four I'd planned, I realized I still have enough leftover yarn for at least a couple more. So I pulled out the warping board and got back to work.