Caterpillar to Butterfly Scarf from Sheep's Clothing--Done!

Transformed!

Blocking this involved stringing two short blocking wires through the looped fringes on either side of the scarf and tacking it up over a doorway.  Super easy.  While blocking did straighten things out a bit, the yarn also didn’t hold the straight shape for long once I put it on.  Still, its light texture makes this a good choice for warmer or transitional climates where a wooly scarf would feel too bulky.

It’s a bit of an odd length by my taste—not quite long enough to loop around my neck, but too long to leave just hanging lose.  It needs a hitch around itself to be thee right length, but then you loose the openwork effect.  I’d want another foot in length if I did it again.  I’ll have to play with it some more to find how I want to style it in its current length  

All things considered, I still view this a very good improvement over the drop stitches scarves I never quite seem to master.  The unraveling is great fun and highly satisfying.  This would make a terrific project to give a young knitter ready to move beyond basic garter—as long as you can be looking over his or her shoulder for the tricky cast on and transformational bits.

Thanks, Sheep’s Clothing, for a unique and ingenious knitting experience!

Next, we move on to a mobius cowl from Griffith’s Spinnin’ Yarns.

Caterpillar to Butterfly Scarf from Sheep's Clothing--Day 5

Opened up...

I wasn’t sure if all that unraveling would be tedious or wondrous.  

Turns out, it’s a little of both.

It’s a lot of yarn-wrangling.  The thing feels like it’s one giant ball of loose ends, even though it isn’t.  It’s so open.  I think it might feel less challenging in a bright color, but the neutral colors of this yarn seemed to fade into everything as I was trying to unleash those stitches.  In reality, there are no loose ends to tangle, but it continued to feel as though it were twisting on itself even though it can’t. It’s not tangled, it can’t really tangle, but it feels as if it is on the verge of tangling every time I pick it up.

While I wasn’t quite sure why it would need blocking, I think that “verge of tangling” feeling is exactly why it needs to be blocked.  After being bent up in stitches for a long time, the yarn won’t lie flat.  That contributes to the “tangling” effect.  Once I block it, I’m hoping the long “slots” of open fiber will lay out more smoothly.

Lengthwise, it’s considerably longer now that the stitches are opened up, but it still isn’t an especially long scarf.  That suits the piece, though, as you would loose a lot of the open effect if you had it looped or knotted.  It’s really one of those scarves to show off flat against a highly contrasting shirt or sweater.  Oodles of texture!

This transformation was indeed fun to create!  Now I’m anxious to view the final product.

Caterpillar to Butterfly Scarf from Sheep's Clothing--Day 4

Fringe benefits...

The transformation begins!

This stage of the scarf is all about unraveling—a strange and foreign process to the knitter.  Purposely undoing all our stitching is an odd feeling, to be sure.  Still, as the twelve stitches on either end of the scarf unravel themselves to become a loopy fringe, it is a fun process to behold.  The scarf has felt too short this whole time—I like my scarves on the long side—but after watching how the loopy fringe is much longer than the knitted stitches, I’m less worried.

After unraveling each set of two rows (yarn to the edge and back), you tie a knot to secure it.  Part of me wants to cut the loop in half so it looks like traditional fringe, but another part of me is sure the fiber will split and get messy.  I could tie another knot at the end of the fringe, but that feels like a lot of knots.  I’ll leave it for now, but reserve the right to change my mind after blocking.

Now that the two edges are done, I begin the process of unraveling the multiple panels within the scarf.  That should change the look of the piece considerably.  Our caterpillar is on its way to butterfly life.

Caterpillar to Butterfly Scarf from Sheep's Clothing--Day 3

For my next trick...

Now it gets tricky.

This is not “knock off a few rows while you watch TV” knitting.  These next steps require close attention.

I’m delighted to say that for the first time in my knitting career, the provisional cast on did “zip off” like it was supposed to.  The squeal of glee is not a requisite accompaniment, but it sure was fun.  

It took me a few minutes of staring to realize, however, that I wasn’t going to end up with live stitches on that bottom edge.  So many times a crochet cast-on with waste yarn is used to produce live stitches to knit in some other way, but that’s not the case here.  You do, however, need the stitches to have no cast-on foundation so that they will unravel correctly in a future step.

Be warned: the step where you fix the locking markers takes a lot of markers.  I had to run to the store and get more.  A own a gazillion ring markers, but not that many locking markers.

The upper edge bind off is a bit mind-bending.  Like most things in knitting, if you just take it step by step, you eventually reach that “ah-ha!” moment where you realize what’s going on.  I’ll admit, the nubby texture of this yarn makes it fight you a bit on the pulling through required to both open up and re-close the “special bind off” stitch.  This makes me wonder how easily the stitches will unravel when it comes to that—it will either be zippy and fun or slow and tedious.

Still, I’m starting to see how this thing will transform—and that’s exciting.   Stay tuned…

Caterpillar to Butterfly Scarf from Sheep's Clothing--Day 2

It's making me wait...

The hard part about this project is the delayed gratification.  I’ve got to slog through a whole lot of garter stitch—essentially all the yarn—to get to the point where this scarf does its transformational tricks.  It’s like a very long, slow climb to the top of the roller coaster before you get to the thrills.  Anticipa-a-tion…

And not just anticipation, but solace, as well.  Every knitter knows the soothing balm of easy knit stitches with lovely fiber.  The texture and the muscle memory take over, and knitting becomes a pleasant enhancement to just about everything.  As the chaotic holiday season ratchets up around here and my task list grows by leaps and bounds, there’s something grounding in the reliable satisfaction of getting to the end of each long row.  

It struck me today, person of faith that I am, that this is the perfect Advent scarf.  Long, quiet hours of preparation for the coming miracle that takes the ordinary to extraordinary.  Knittable Advent calendars, roller coasters—forgive us writer types, we love to take our metaphors and run wild with them.  

But I do love how knitting so often can take on the character of my days or attitudes.

Caterpillar to Butterfly Scarf from Sheep's Clothing

Animal antics...

“That can’t be long enough.”

I stare at this scarf, now cast on my needles exactly as instructed, and I can’t see how this short swath of stitches is going to transform itself into a full length scarf.  

I understand the concept, and I recognize the truth that dropped stitches take up more space than knitted ones, but I can’t envision how this is going to stretch out as much as it seems to need to.

Then again, I understand the concept of metamorphosis that turns a caterpillar into a butterfly, I’ve seen it work, but I still can’t quite get my brain around how it happens.  So the name suits, don't you think?

I made an interesting choice in provisional cast on yarn here.  I was staring it it for a while, thinking the whole thing looked vaguely familiar, and then it hit me:  sock monkey.  

The colors of the yarn (in it’s current length—it changes several times throughout the ball) are just like the red-brown-and-white sock monkeys we all know and love.  I know that reaction will go away once the other hues come into play, but it is rather amusing to feel like I’m knitting a sock monkey.

A too-short sock monkey that turns into a caterpillar that turns into a long-enough butterfly.  Is knitting an amazing thing or what??