My Gentleman's Scarf Part 1: The Herringbone Pattern or Learning to KRL!

From cogknition.org

Every gentleman should have a gentleman's scarf.

And every knitter's spouse should have at least one article lovingly knitted for them by said spouse. My spouse has neither. But last night I began doing something about it. I have tried, and failed, more than once in the past, but this time I'm determined to successfully complete a knitted item he can actually wear!

So last night, with my hanks of Malabrigo Silky Merino (430 Smoke) all wound into nice tidy balls (for a super easy way to do this, read my post No More Hanky Panky), I started on this lovely looking red herring scarf pattern by Yvonne Kao (available at CognKnition or through my Ravelry project page). 

Pattern Choice

Four things drew me to this pattern:

1. A scarf is a one-size-fits all pattern, ergo, it has to fit him!

2. It calls for DK weight yarn, so I can make it lightweight and silky.

3. It's rated easy, but still has a stitch pattern to keep me from getting too bored.

4. It involves learning a new stitch!

Learning  a new stitch: KRL

Six rows of moss stitch border and first four row cycle of the herringbone pattern.

Casting On

I started by casting on my 49 stitches. The pattern calls for a long tail cast on, but I can only cast on the one way my mother showed me when I was eight, i.e., looping the yarn around my left forefinger as a dummy needle and knitting it off onto the right needle (an actual needle). I have tried learning this other cast, but apparently you can only teach an old some new tricks. Others swear by it, but I find it a slow, pain in the ass that gains me nothing. There. Got that off my chest.

Moss Stitch Border

Next, I completed the six rows of moss stitch (row 1 K1, P1 to last stitch, K1, row 2 P, row 3 P1, K1 to last stitch, P1) to form the scarf's border. The beginning and end of each of the herringbone rows is also done in moss to create a border on the sides.

Herringbone/KRL

Now the fun part! The Herringbone pattern is a series of 7 stitches where you alternate between knitting two together and increasing one with two knit stitches in between. The herringbone look comes from the increases being done KRL or Knit Right Loop. KRL means you slip your needle into the right loop of the stitch below the next stitch on your left needle, and then knit the actual next stitch on your left needle. I could sort of picture this in my head, but then I remembered, why SORT OF PICTURE anything when you can look at ACTUAL MOVING PICTURES OF IT ON YOUTUBE!!!

So I found this extremely helpful clip from Learn a Stitch a Day:

AWESOME!!! Did I mention how much I love Youtube? The most helpful part of seeing this was knowing where to place my needle. I would have picked the stitch up from the front and tried to knit it straight off, but it is much easier to grab it from the back and stick it on the left needle first, as shown.

Challenges

Keeping track - I ended up screwing up my first try at this. I think I lost count and either forgot to do a knit stitch somewhere, or got my order mixed up, but by the end of the first row, I didn't have the right number of stitches. This pattern is going to keep me on my toes!

Reading the wool - I found it really hard to find my mistake, because I couldn't obviously SEE what stitches I had done. I think this is probably because I'm not far enough along in the pattern yet, and because the dark, smoky color I chose makes it extra hard to see the stitches. I wound up pulling it all out and starting from scratch. But on my second try I succeeded and was really excited that I could already see the swishy swashy herringbones beginning to appear at the end of just one cycle!

Slippery needles and slippery wool - finding the right 'Right Loop' and slipping it onto the needle without dropping it or splitting it is also a bit challenging. It might be better to learn this with less slippery wool and with a bigger size of bamboo, not metal needles, but I'll be sticking with what I've got and muddling through.

Because the wool truth is, I am just that stubborn :)