Scribbling a Diversion

I took a little time from shawl/afghan knitting to make a couple of hats for my mother, by request. I made them in two days and sent them off without photographing them, which was silly of me -- I'll ask my father to take photos.

Anyway, while picking out greens for my mother's hat, I came across a combination that I really liked, a very thin slightly fuzzy strand and some crazy yarn. So after the hats were sent off, I started on a Debbie New scribble lace scarf. (This explains scribble lace, and has a pattern, but I just improvised.)

I'm using size 13 needles, so it is going quick, although the thin yarn loops sometimes overlap and I have to make sure I'm knitting the correct stitch.

I once had the idea of knitting a plain triangular shawl, but then picking up and knitting embellishments. somewhat like what I did here:

(Can you see the knobby row?) But the idea of knitting the plain foundation triangle was so boring!

The scribble lace makes me wonder if I could do the foundation triangle in this fine yarn on size 13, to make it go so much faster, or would that provide too flimsy of a foundation, and just result in disaster when I tried to knit heavier yarns on it? I'll have to think on that. It might make a good side project during a more intense knit.

In the meantime, I knit an Elizabeth Zimmermann spiral hat for my mother out of one of my magic balls, and it looked very colorful but I used the 13s, and it came out a little too large and puffy. I saved it with some elastic, but now I'm thinking of trying again.

(Here are some pictures of the spiral hat from other Flickr people. The pattern is available in Spun-Out #9, but I used her book, The Opinionated Knitter. It might be other of her books, too, but they are lent out right now.)

Anyway, I was thinking of reducing the bottom to 45 stitches, and then increasing in one out of three, which would give me 4 spirals going up. But the 3-spiral version on the very next page starts with only 40 stitches! Hmmm, maybe I'll just try that version instead, and just keep an eye on the size.

Here is the magic ball I'm thinking of using.