Hairpin Lace in Scarves -- The Goldilocks Effect

I've been experimenting with using hairpin lace as the middle of start-in-the-middle scarves.

Hairpin lace wasn't a craft I was familiar with, so I found directions for how to create it online. For the first attempt, I used one of my magic balls, and the result came out too short for a scarf.

 It might be long enough for a neck gaiter, perhaps, but it now has a better use.

I did a simple row or two of knitting around the edges before binding off. This worked, but made the edge seem tighter than the middle.

For my next attempt, I used some thick silk yarn, and kept adding loops until no more would fit on the loom. I'll bet you can guess what happened.

That's it at the top. It doesn't looks so bad, does it? Well, what you aren't seeing is that the length had to be folded back on itself, so it had to be doubled to shorten it to a reasonable length for a scarf.

Even doubled, it makes a long scarf. Still, it did come out looking nice, and this time I accommodated the stretchiness by putting a yarnover between each loop when I added the knitting around the edges. That's the next lesson learned: thick yarns make a stretchy length.

For my third try, I used a ribbony yarn, one of those made from pieces left over from saris from Darn Good Yarn. This one came out just right.

Again I added the yarnover between each loop, and twisted each loop before knitting it up along the edge.

As you can see, I knit several rows around, one of them all yarnovers, and used some fluffy yarn to set off the materials.

I treated the ends like other start-in-the-middle scarves, picking up extra stitches and creating either squared-off ends or rounded ends.

So: too short, too long, just right. My next attempt was for a scarf with heart patterns at each end, for Valentine's Day. That was another adventure!

How to Use a Frill

About the only thing you see the frilly yarns used for are the scarves that are all frill. But those yarns are so full of possibilities!

Here are some other uses.

 1. Beginnings

Easiest cast-on in the book: just pick up along the frill. Casting off is a bit harder, but not difficult. What I usually do is cast off with another yarn, picking up a bit of the frilly yarn in each stitch cast off.

2. Down the Middle

The pink one is a bit of fun, frilly and shiny and lacy. I did one of the frilly yarns down the middle, one ridge forward and back. This gives a lovely frill down the middle on both sides.

Here are a few closer looks.

 I really like this one!

The brown one uses the frilly yarn as the center section. I laid the frill yarn out, had it do a U-turn and then joined it down the middle to get the width, and then I knit around and around, and finished with the same frill yarn.

3. Round and Round

This is based on Kim Salazar's Kureopatora scarf, which is one of my go-to patterns. In between each section I knit one row of a frilly yarn (so the frill was on one side), and then started the next section. This makes the frill wrap around the scarf.

It's difficult to get a good picture of the effect, so I tried to show it with the lines below.

Here is a blue version, maybe you can see the wraparound here, too.

 It's a start. I think there are still more things to discover.

Why Not?

I'm entranced with Circulo Tecido Trico, a fabric strip yarn with holes along one side. I'll post pictures of how I used it in a scarf soon. I also love Darn Good Yarn's fabric yarns.

So I thought I would try to make some myself.

I bought some remnants and some wide ribbons which were on sale, looking for materials that didn't seem like they would fray if cut.

Before:

During:

After:

How easy, right?

Well, except for needing to buy a new rotary blade and choosing the wrong one, making cuts into my cutting board, and, because I couldn't resist the glittery materials, I ended up with glitter everywhere. (I thought the glitter was part of the material, not something that would shed.)

So I ended up throwing away the most glittery ones, but after all the work cutting it, it was a disappointment.

I did end up with some yarn, but much of it feels stiffer than it did as a remnant. I'll try it, and hope the blocking softens it.

But I think I'll leave it to the professionals in the future.

Even though I did have help. Dex is glittery now, too.