Hello Again :) It's time for the fist post in the Craft Corner. This corner is not going to be a weekly corner because making stuff takes quite some time, but every now and again I shall be updating you with my current Work In Progress (WIPs) and finishes. For the first post in this section, I decided to give you a small tutorial on how to work with Ruffle Yarn and share with you two scarves that I have completed in the past few days and which I mentioned in the Fashion Friday section.
Before starting off with how to work with Ruffle Yarn, I want to explain what this novelty yarn is. In reality is is noting like the traditional yarn that we are used to, but it is more like a wide fabric kind of yarn. It comes in various shades and structures, but most of them have a kind of ladder on the top part where you are supposed to insert your knitting needles. When worked it creates ruffles and the way the ruffles turn on themselves is determined by how you pick up the stitches.
I will explain two ways of creating scarves using this yarn below but first let me show you the basics of working with it.
This is how the yarn is packed. This particular variety has different shades of grey and pompoms at its end.
This is how it looks when you unwind it from the yarn ball. It doesn't look anything like a ruffle.
And this is how it looks when you open it up. You can see the perforated ladder at the top part and the pompoms at the bottom of the ruffle.
6mm Needles are the ideal size to work with these yarns.
In order to pick up the stitches all you have to do is insert the needle from the front of your work into the ladder part. I decided to work in between the first diamond block such that I have two threads on the needles in order to avoid it unravelling. Below is how the picked up stitches look.
When working with this yarn, you must always insert the needle from the front. To knit, all you have to do is insert the needle in the next hole on the ruffle and draw it in the loop on your needle as if kniting. Always turn your work when you get at the end of your row and turn the ruffle yarn accordingly such that there are no twists at the end but it looks more like a fold. Just like when folding a ribbon. When you are done, all you have to do is bind off normally. You will find that the last stitch will be hard to secure. I tied it up with the loose ends in the ruffle at the end, making sure that the knots were strong and tight enough. If you don't have loose ends, you will have to sew it in the fabric of the ruffle with some matching thread and make sure that it is secured.
When you run out of yarn, don't worry! You either work all the yarn in one ball and work the next stitch with the new ball or else if you want to secure your work a little more, overlap the first two stitches of the new ball with the last two stitches of the last ball. There is no need to make any knots or join yarn :)
The first scarf is made with shades of blue with yarn which was prepared by Lidl for their craft section. The instructions that came with the pack require that the scarf is worked along the whole lenght of the scarf and advises that 200grams are necessary to finish it to a decent lenght. It also explained that 80 stitches are what is needed to cover the entire lenght of the scarf. I worked according to these instructions and the result is a nice ruffled scarf that when hung from the tip, the ruffles kind of circle in on themselves to form waves. Here are some pictures:
The picture is a little sideways but you can see the wavy ruffles.
Scarf 2
The second scarf is worked differently. I decided to deviate from the instructions and instead of working along the lenght of the scarf, work along the width. I decided that 10 stitches would be enough for a decent width and then worked all the yarn in the 4 bundles. The result was a slightly longer scarf that the blue one with ruffles overlaid on top of each other.
Here are some pictures:
Sorry about the picture being a litte sideways. You can see the ruffles are different from the blue one.
I hope you found this tutorial useful and if you wish to check out on some ideas on how to style these scarves, you can visit last week's Fashion Friday here. I shall be featuring these two in other Fashion Friday posts and create new looks so look forward to that. If you have no idea how to knit and don't know where to begin, if you live in Malta I would be more than glad to knit your scarf for just 5Euros, provided that you buy the yarn of your choice yourself :) All you have to do is drop me a message below or on Facebook here :)
Till next post,
Saranghae,
Pauline
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