I was, apparently, laboring under the delusion that no one in their right mind would make socks that could not be just tossed into the washing machine with all the other clothes because handwashing socks seems very, very pointless. I was also laboring under the delusion that when a yarn label claims it is machine washable, it is.
Ha. Guess what happened when I took all three cute little brown stripey hats and all three brown stripey scarves, including the one with the fun curliques on the ends, and tossed them into the washing machine. Yes, that’s right. You guessed it. They felted. Gah.
The hats may be salvageable, if I attempt to resecure the pompoms, and the two non-curlique scarves are probably okay. But the curliques are ruined. Sigh. Yes, I know. This is a very good lesson in why one should not only knit up a swatch, but toss it into the washing machine to see what happens.
I had to go to the store to pick up some cheap acrylic yarn for a project I’m making for my husband (it’s from the new Knitty), so while I was there I succombed to the lure of some Bernat cotton in lovely shades of cream and purple and pink, and whipped up a very basic stockinette scarf for my niece to replace the one with ruined curliques. It’s cotton, which means it doesn’t have as much stretch as most yarns, but it’s got a lovely silky feel to it when knit up, and I think she’ll like it. Plus at least I know that even if it shrinks a little in length, at least it will not felt. Yay.
I’ve received a few queries for info on how to make the curliques, so here’s how my friend showed me how to do them.
Cast on however many stitches you want.
Row 1 – Knit
Row 2 – Increase 3 stitches for every stitch by doing the following: Knit into front, then back, then front again of each stitch
Row 3 – Bind off
The bound-off row is longer than the first row so it will start to curl as you are binding it off. You may need to do a little additional shaping with your finger or a pencil or something, but it should curl up quite nicely on its own.