Learning About Knits, the Hard Way

 

Not all knits are created equal.  Well, of course not, but I just never actually put any time or thought into this before.  I probably should have.

This is one of my more unsuccessful projects, although it came out passable in the end, I suppose.  Hopefully, you can learn from my mistakes.

 

 

In the burst of inspiration I got from all those jersey knit scarves on Pinterest, I had gone out and bought myself the gray jersey I used for the Crochet and Braid scarf, and one yard of a lovely thick soft knit, in a beautiful yellow color.  I didn’t read whether it was jersey, but it felt like it could be a t-shirt!

Apparently, I got lucky with the gray fabric, because this time around, everything that could go wrong, did go wrong.

First, the inspiration for scarf project #2 is an infinity scarf with mini braids across it.  The website is in German, so Google translated it for me and told me it’s a fabric scarf with interwoven braids.  What?  How does one interweave braids into fabric?

 

 

After puzzling over this one for a couple of days, I just moved on.  I cut 1 inch strips out of my yellow fabric to pull into yarn, and this is what I got:

 

 

I cut another strip, this time with the grain, and pulled.  NOTHING.  NO CURL.  .

So here’s the lesson for today.  A knit fabric has wales and courses.  Think of wales as the knit stitch Vs in a sweater, and the courses as the horizontal looking purl stitches.  A fabric that curls at the edges (and that rolls itself into yarn) is a single knit, where the front of the fabric is different than the back, one side showing wales, and the other side showing courses, like a sweater.  MY fabric, my beautiful buttery fabric, had wales showing on both sides, and was a double knit, and had no curl.  BOO.

Ok, plan B – make the infinity scarf anyways and use yarn braids instead of fabric braids.  I had some pretty curly yarn that matched the fabric, so I braided it, and it didn’t look good.  On to plan C – stitching them straight to the fabric.  Boy were those stitches UGLY.

 

 

Now this is where I REALLY didn’t think my cunning plan all the way through.  I sewed the short ends together, then the long sides, leaving a hole to flip the loop inside out, which, instead of a right side out loop, left me with a tube with a lining.  Serious FAIL here.

After cutting out the incorrect stitches, I was so frustrated I didn’t even bother trying to figure out how to properly close the infinity scarf loop.  I just sewed the whole thing shut and called it done.

 

 

I went back to JoAnn’s today to search for real jersey fabric, and only found 1 bolt of a strange looking gray knit and 1 bolt of a hot pink knit that I’d be afraid to sport in public.  Sometimes, I wish I lived in New York City and had the world’s fabrics at my finger tips. (It’s that instant vs delayed gratification thing again!)

Good luck to all of you out there making your own t-shirt scarves.  May your fabrics be beautiful and your edges curl!