Damn, Knit & Blast It

The Earth Stripe Wrap (ESW) has whizzed along, despite me having my attention diverted by the Petal Bib and the green Snuzzle Scarf!

I reached the pattern decreed length of 148cm - Phew. Two full pattern repeats and another 60 rows.

Hmmmm….Yarn amounts are an annoyance again. To get to the 148cm point, I’ve had to buy third, extra ball, of shade 589 - Majestic (a mousey grey/beige colour) and have used at least a third of it. I haven’t touched the second ball of shade 582 - Trance (bright teal blue). Trance is used in the crochet edging so I will probably need that if I stick to the pattern but frankly, I would have preferred to use a different colour (that I have plenty left over of) and save adding another ball to my already obese KSH stash

This is the beast so far..

I tried the lovely creature on - it is beautiful- but somehow it’s not long enough - it’s just a personal preference - I really feel the cold…

I wanted something to really wrap around me - it’s ok but feels a little stingy and like it would be a pain to keep in place when flung casually over over my shoulder. No problem, lots of yarn left - I’ll just knit it longer…

…but how much yarn will the tassels take? I suspected that they eat up the yarn. The last thing I wanted to do was have to skimp on the tassels because I’d made the wrap longer.

Seemed obvious to me - make all the tassels now, then continue knitting till I’m happy or I run out of yarn!

The pattern says to make the tassels “in the same colour combinations” as the wrap. Not easy when faced with 182 rows of differing combinations. I decided to follow the pattern exactly and have double strands following the row by row changes of colour combinations.

To make the lengths 50cm long - I looked out a book of about 25cm height…A History of Handknitting by Reverend Richard Rutt fitted the bill perfectly!

This is a fascinating book as well as a good “tasselification tool”. Quite scholarly but packed with useful knitterly facts, technical information and historical and social details. It covers from the earliest ancient knitting to modern day - worth reading if you can get a copy. My copy is from the late ’80s so the cover has changed!

How about that picture of the Author - the Bishop of Leicester!

Now the tassely sums….

• I needed 8 strands in each tassle - that’s 4 rows of doubled KSH. (Phew - I’m a maths genius )
• I needed 36 tassles at each end.
• 36 tassles x 4 rows each = 144 rows of the pattern I had to wrap round the book.
• I had to do that twice - one set for each end.

And the method…

• Make two, 4 row tassels at a time in the same colour combination - you need one for each end!
• hold the desired colours together and wrap once around the book for each row, on the left of the book
• do the same on the right of the book
• if there are several rows the same, keep wrapping.
• when you have 4 rows worth (8 strands) in each “bunch”, cut through the yarn at the point you started (I always started at the bottom)
• You’ll end up with this…

What to do with all these lengths of yarn so they don’t tangle into a rats’ nest?

I looped them onto two spare knitting needles, putting one of each colour on each needle, using the normal knot for a scarf tassle - the Larks Head Knot. Bet you didn’t know that had a name huh?

I ended up with this…

Much fun has been had with these, they appear to be irresistible to anyone who sees them. Wigs and Hawaiian skirts are the favourite witty japes Thug and Mewsley are the only ones who, strangely, seem disinterested!

On with knitting another mile of ESW…