Knitting

Free Patterns, Tutorials and Project Ideas

Free Pattern: Pirouette Scarf

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pirouette scarfI really like the look of lace, but I am neither the sort of person who has the time to knit a big, fancy lace project nor the sort of person who would wear such a thing if I did knit it. Instead, I much prefer projects that use eyelets and lace in interesting ways that aren’t too time consuming to knit.

That’s why I like this week’s featured pattern from Classic Elite Yarns, the Pirouette Scarf (link is to a PDF). This scarf features panels of eyelets separated by bands of stockinette, making for an easier, warmer and less-fussy lace scarf. The yarn is a blend of mohair, bamboo and nylon, which makes it fuzzy, drapey and just a little shiny. This one would be great for gift knitting or to make for yourself!

[Photo by Classic Elite Yarns.]

Comments

  1. I’m with you. I like to knit but I prefer a pattern that doesn’t take too awfully long or is very complicated.

    This scarf looks perfect to fit the softer but not all girlie-girl side of me. Thanks for sharing.

Have you read?

Knit a Leopard Print Shawl and Learn about Yarn Substitution

When I was looking around for free knitting patterns to share recently, I came across this fun leopard print wrap from Yarnspirations. 

This fun bulky wrap gives you tons of practice with instarsia and makes a bold statement while keeping you warm. It’s rated for intermediate knitters and the design is charted but pretty easy to follow. And it’s only 50 rows and worked in bulky yarn, so it wouldn’t even take that long to knit. (You can grab the free pattern from Yarnspirations.)

So what’s the problem? The yarn that the pattern calls for has been discontinued, and it’s not a yarn that a substitute for immediately springs to mind. 

The original yarn was Patons Alpaca Blend, a single ply bulky yarn that was a combination of acrylic, superwash wool, nylon and alpaca. 

My first thought was Lion Brand Hue + Me, which is an acrylic and wool blend, with two plies instead of a single. It looks like it has the colors you would need to make this fun shawl. 

But as I was thinking about it, I thought this would be a good opportunity to introduce you to YarnSub if you don’t already know about it. This website is a giant database of yarn that can consider the qualities of the yarn you want to substitute and offer potential substitutions. 

It’s not only thinking about yarn weight, like I was, but also fiber content, number of plies, gauge and even the difference in yardage between one ball and another. It even looks at the price and can be filtered by your price range or preferences about fiber content (if, say, you’re sensitive or allergic to wool, for example, or don’t want to you acrylic). 

When I plugged in Alpaca Blend, it gave me a lot of different options, though many of them were self-striping or multicolored, which wouldn’t work for this project, and I don’t see a way to filter for solid colors only. 

Still, it’s a good tool to give you some ideas you might not know about or might have forgotten about, and it tells you how the new yarn is similar to the old one and how it differs, allowing you to make smarter choices when substituting yarns. 

[Photo: Yarnspirations]