My obsession with knitting a fair isle scarf like the one worn by Hermione in the Harry Potter movie, Half Blood Prince, continues. Here's my latest.
This one is a keeper. It's knit on 4 mm needles, 72 stitches, with my own Mixed Breed single ply wool at a gauge of 6 stitches, 7 rows to 1 inch. That's a tiny bit off from what I think is needed, but it's close and with blocking I think it will look more like the movie scarf.
I dyed many skeins of yarn trying to come close to matching the colours of the movie scarf. A misty grey, a camel brown, a blue, purple, and something dark. I was having the most trouble with the darker colour and deciding if it was dark green, or navy, or black, or even dark brown. My solution was to dye a variegated skein with all those colours in it. I quite like the result.
All five colours for knitting my version of Hermione's Scarf are available in the shop as a kit with the chart.
I found solutions for two of the four swatches for the scarf. The top left - my own Mixed Breed single ply wool, 3.25 mm needles, but errors in the chart and number of stitches - has become a hat. I ripped back the cast on, added a ribbing, and made pompoms for the top. One more Christmas gift off the list!
The bottom right with Patons Classic Merino, 3.75 mm needles, and 72 stitches was too thick. Way too bulky. It's become a child's headband with ribbing on both ends. Another unexpected Christmas gift.
The other two rejects are too pretty to rip out but I'm not sure what they could become. The top right is my own Suffolk wool, 72 stitches, 3.75 mm needles, and too wide. I love the pattern, but it's not the right width for a scarf.
The bottom left is a combination of Patons Kroy and Dale of Norway's Baby Ull, 72 stitches, 3 mm needles. Again, I love the pattern, but it was too tiny, too narrow. Not right, but what could it become? It would work for a scarf, but I didn't have the heart to keep knitting. My obsession can only go so far!
The scarf is coming along beautifully! Great use of your swatches too! :)
Posted by: Zonda | September 07, 2009 at 04:18 PM
Oh so pretty. I am too chicken to try fair isle. Yours is beautiful.
Karin
Posted by: Karin | September 27, 2009 at 11:09 PM
Your art-work/knitting is Fab!
Question: When you are changing to the color yarn(cc), do you carry a small amount of the yarn on a spool so that they are not carried all through the scarf
& cut as you change colors?
Thank you for sharing this wonderful scarf.
Crissy
Posted by: Crissy | October 23, 2009 at 07:46 PM
Crissy - Thanks! No, I cut as I change colours for most rows. If I'm just carrying it a couple of rows, then I just carry the yarn those few rows. I'm not weaving in the ends - tie together a couple of times. All of the ends will be on the inside and won't show anyway!
Posted by: freshisle | October 25, 2009 at 08:18 PM
Awesome work! I so want to make this, but I'm quite slow so it's a bit daunting. Can't believe how much work you've done - blooming well done girl! :)
Posted by: tiggersjp | December 14, 2009 at 05:30 PM
I can't tell you how excited I was to find this pattern. I watched the movie for the first time on DVD last night, and the only thing I could think of after was how much I wanted to make her scarf. You've done a fantastic job with this! And to those who think faire isle is too difficult-looking, trust everyone who says it isn't nearly as hard as it looks!
Posted by: Erin | December 30, 2009 at 09:57 PM