Knitting Mojo is BACK!

After all my whining and moaning about this scarf over the past few weeks I thought it's only fair that I showed you some pics of the finished object.

It's going to be on its way to the UK as soon as the Aussie Day long weekend's over! (After all the rush to get it finished I couldn't get to the Post Office today because of work commitments... sigh.)

And here are the project details if anyone's interested...

Project: Phylotaxis Scarf from Knitting Nature by Norah Gaughan (obviously)
Yarn: 6 balls of Jo Sharp Silkroad DK Tweed in Autumn
Needles: 5mm and 5.5mm
Started: Christmas Eve 06
Finished: 25th Jan, 07

Brief description: The scarf is knitted as a tube with an 80 stitch, 20 round pattern repeat. Sounds scary but after a few repeats it's obvious where the pattern's going and you can pretty much ditch the chart. (Although it's a good idea to check every few rows as mistakes are a pain to fix because the twist stitches are hard to undo and redo.)

Basically the pattern is formed using 'twist' stitches (same technique as in the Asymmetrical Cardigan) to create a lattice pattern that spirals up the scarf without any breaks. The continuous spiral is created by knitting an extra stitch (i.e. K81) in the even rounds so the pattern repeats (done in the odd rounds) shift and move diagonally up the scarf. It's pretty clever and what drew me to the pattern in the first place.

The Experience: I really enjoyed this at the start. The formation of the pattern is interesting to watch, and once you get the hang of the pattern, it's pretty mindless TV-friendly sort of a project.

However, because it's knitted in the round, it takes twice as long to get the length you want and I was bored by the time I was halfway through. Admittedly I do have the attention span of a gnat so this may not be a universal problem.

Also I used Addi Turbos which are great needles in general, but the tips were just too blunt for doing the twist stitches. I think this is going to my last project with these types of stitches for a while.