Hottie Hardcore; knit hard or go home!
Big congrats to fearless fibre fiends Ev and Hardcore. Ev’s got her scarf about half-way in the bag, but Hardcore…well, she’s Hardcore. She’s waaaaaaaay ahead of the curve as you can see from this pic (although Ev finished a cable hat — God, I hope it wasn’t mine because I found more errors in it; I’m such a dumbass). Final score: Tie. Ev’s hat and half twisty is par with Hardcore’s damn-near-done twisty.
I just don’t know how Ev and Hardcore find the time to get their knit on with such intensity. A time machine? Clones that do their shopping and cleaning? If you reveal the Wu-Tang Secret of their prowess to me I’ll send you something rad from my stash.
Hardcore says her twisty is worked in a really spiffy quality cotton. All I care about is those really spiffy pink needles. Booyah! I can never find stuff that cool in Saskatchewan.
Actually, I present Hardcore here not just for you to admire and laud but because her work opens yet another discussion on the twisty scarf: materials.
Anything you wear around your neck should be light. As such, cotton would not be a typical choice. Cotton can weigh you down like too much dim sum, but not all cottons are created equal. You can find cotton that’s one helluva lot lighter than the cheapy-dishcloth variety but even so it’s going to be much heavier than wool in the end.
Options? Erm….none really. You’re either going cotton or wool with this one, there’s really no in-between unless you want to go ultra light and make one in mohair. You’ll lose detail but yowza, think what a show-stopper that would be!
Don't even try to lint-brush this stuff. Packing tape is the only thing that'll take it off, trust me.
One fibre you don’t want to do this in is recycled silk. Seriously. I did a twisty in it and it looks amazing except:
- it’s heavy enough to affect your posture
- it smells like a yak
- it sheds like 12 angry cats
So, epic fail on the recycled silk for this project.
If you gotta use the cotton, here’s a suggestion: Serve this basic idea up to create another pasta inspired shape: lasagna! Work with a right and wrong side and, and work short rows 6 sts and 4 sts in every three or whatever rows. That’ll make the edges a bit frilly and, because you’re not gaining weight from the compressed round and round shape of the twisty scarf, it’ll weight waaaaaay less.
Yes, yes….I’m working on a recipe for that. And for a boa (Hardcore mentioned ‘boa’ in passing and, y’know, I’ve got a recipe for it too) so stay tuned.
Apologies to Ev for the hat. I’m a dumbass.