The benefits of knitting with Sashay Fringe yarn

Sashay your way onto the Fringe of Fashion

Red Heart’s Sashay Fringe yarn is a very interesting and unique product, so I wanted to talk about my specific experiences making the Positive Pink Ruffles scarf pattern. The ruffle yarn, without the fur, was very popular in the not-too-distant past and as a result there are thousands of patterns you can make. The difference is you get a bit of extra flair when knitting them with Sashay Fringe. Not only this, see the benefits of knitting with Sashay Fringe yarn.

The Positive Pink Ruffles scarf pattern made with the Red Heart Boutique Sashay Fringe yarn.

I absolutely love this yarn for scarves because it's so easy, but it looks much more difficult than it actually is. This is perfect for someone who is just starting out and looking for a fun project, but also for tempting your friends into knitting! The yarn counts as a bulky, but you’re just knitting in the mesh, as seen on the how-to video.

Red Heart Sashay Scarf Cast On

First thing is to cast on; this can be really tricky if you're not sure what you’re doing with this yarn.

The mesh already has holes in it so you aren’t doing a long-tail cast on or anything. You’re using the holes in that mesh webbing to cast on. Sashay Fringe doesn't have the little rail road track in the top, so I would suggest starting at the holes nearer to the center. This way you won't see much of the mesh itself as you're knitting and the stitches you have on your needle are a little more defined. There aren’t that many stitches either, the pattern from the Red Heart website calls for 6 stitches. Trust me, this is the most difficult part of the whole thing! Once your cast on is done, it’s time to get knitting.

Using the holes in the mesh webbing to cast on the Sashay Fringe

The scarf knits up really fast, but in the first few rows you may find yourself thinking it's incredibly ugly. This is normal, it’s like knitting lace; it doesn’t look good until you are closer to the end. With lace that means blocking, with Sashay Fringe, it means a bit closer to the end.

One difference between ruffle yarns and Sashay Fringe that I really enjoyed, is the lack of maintenance while you're knitting it. With the regular ruffle yarn you have to smooth it out as you're knitting it to get a real ‘ruffled’ effect. The fur edge is what you're looking to accentuate with this yarn and there's no need to smooth it out. The weight of the fur itself makes sure the yarn isn't bunched up within the knitted folds of the scarf. Closer to the end of the ball the mesh is folded into the fur, but that is a simple matter of unfolding as you go along. If you place your thumb in the folded groove, as you move along the strand it will open up automatically.

Running your thumb along the inside as you knit makes it open right up.

The Rows of Ruffles pillow is something that I would dearly love to try; I relish in the thought it will turn out so soft. This pattern is linked to a crochet pattern and my crochet skills leave something to be desired, so I would knit the whole thing.

To convert this pillow pattern to a knitting pattern find your knitting gauge using Sashay Fringe, lift up the ruffles to the stitches underneath. My gauge was 4 stitches in 1", so if my pillow was 22" around, I would have to cast on 88 stitches to cover that pillow. This isn't a proper pattern, just some quick and dirty math to get the knitted pillow you want.

You'll might have to keep an eye on a pillow like that to make sure it doesn’t migrate to a friend’s home. It would be a great idea for covering old pillows that are faded or stained. Furthermore, it works up so quickly, you can make several to give to your girlfriends for the upcoming holiday season. Knit it up in their favorite color or in the color to match up with their decor.

The stitches can be seen between my finger and the ruler, that is one row of four stitches.

Knitting a scarf with Sashay Fringe isn't the only thing. With the many patterns out there for ruffle yarn, there's no end to the accessories you can make, as there are several benefits of knitting with Sashay Fringe yarn. All those patterns will be brand new again when knit with Sashay Fringe. The little edge of fur brings a totally different look to your favorite patterns. Give it a whirl!

A knitted hat with a beard

The pattern for a beard

With Halloween coming up, I thought a knitted hat with a beard would be an excellent pattern to both protect you from the elements and add to a costume. This is a hat, just like the pattern provided last month, with a beard attachment. I say attachment, because it's removable.

A knitted hat with a beard is a perfect addition to a Halloween costume. Be a lumberjack? An elf?

materials
1 Hat
1 ball of Red Heart’s Boutique Fur yarn in color Smoke
1 set of needles US 15 [10mm]
1 tapestry needle

Cast on 4 stitches, follow the two rows below until your beard reaches approximately 8" in width. This measurement may be different if you're knitting this for a man, woman or child. To find the measurement for your particular garment, measure from one side of the jaw (just underneath the ear) around the chin to the other side.

Row 1: Knit all stitches
Row 2: K1, kfb, k to the last two stitches, kfb, k1

The mouth opening

To make an opening for the mouth, bind off the middle 6 stitches. If your beard is 12 stitches, you'll k3, bo5, k3. When you turn your work the other way, cast on those same stitches using the backwards loop method. Knit one row plain and bind off. Leave a tail of yarn to loop back into the beard to slip around buttons on the inside of hat. You can weave the end in with your fingers and tie the end into the beard itself. There's enough texture with this yarn that small knots like this will secure your ends and go unnoticed in the body of your work. Cut a 5" length of yarn and make a loop for the other side and wear with pride!

Use large buttons and sew them on opposite sides of the inside of the hat.

The beautiful part of this pattern is the ability to detach the beard. While this is fantastic for cold weather and keeps chilly air off your face, there may be occasions where you want to wear the hat without its hairy counterpart. You can also make any adjustments you choose, such as a longer beard, adding in a braided plait, some longer strands for an impressive mustache. The possibilities are endless!

Although this knitted hat with a beard is a great idea for Halloween, it can also be knit up in white for the Christmas season and created for Santa's beard. So easy and so fast to knit up! Join me tomorrow for more knitting fun.

The Right Job for the Right Yarn

Are you Pairing Yarn and Project the Wrong Way?

Last month, during the yarn review of Red Heart’s Boutique yarns Twilight and Infinity, I touched upon not using very colorful yarn for a project with an intense stitch pattern. This is a small part of a much larger iceberg that doesn’t get as much attention as it should.

Red Heart, Sashay Fringe, Fur, Boutique, Yarn

You always want to coordinate your yarn and projects. I'll tell you right now, I find it much easier to pair a yarn to a project rather than the other way around. There are hundreds of thousands of patterns and you could spend days on Ravelry seeking the right pattern. Whereas yarn is usually something we touch and go, ‘ohhh, no, I must have this’. At that point we panic and try to think what we would use it for, how much should we get, what's the budget for this project?

If you use the queue or library of your Ravelry page then you’re halfway there. You can save the patterns you like in here and when the opportunity of yarn comes up, just check the gauge and yardage for that project; simple, easy, no panic involved. If you’re going in the other direction and just buy a sweater’s worth of yarn every time, you need to search for the perfect pattern, you might have way too much, not enough, this yarn might be best suited for making a hat, but now you have 1000m in your stash.

I feel that I have now terrified most people into using these tools and being extremely organized with their yarn shopping from now on; sorry for the horror stories, but it IS October.

Red Heart Yarn, picking the right yarn for the right project

Now! For unsolicited advice about actually picking your yarn. Keep in mind what I said about busy yarn color and busy stitch patterns. It’s like wearing a patterned shirt and patterned pants. It’s possible, but never looks as good as you think it will. There's another factor in there, which is more particularly inline with this week's yarn: texture.

The two yarns I'm playing with this week are furry, but there are a number of other factors that give a yarn texture. Mohair and baby yarns can be textured because they're so fluffy, Red Heart’s Scrubby yarn is textured. A good way to tell if a yarn is textured would be to knit a swatch and see if you can clearly define stitches.

Red Heart's Boutique Sashay Fringe yarn is very textured

If you remember the swatch I posted yesterday, there's no way you would be able to make heads or tails out of a stitch pattern on that swatch. You might be able to do something that was really REALLY big, like a cable that was 18 or 20 stitches in total, but that seems like we're going a bit nuclear. The cabled cowl posted on Monday has a lot of texture in itself; therefore it will be suited for a very plain yarn; solid, one color, regular spun construction.

Do you see how raised the cables are using Red Heart with Love yarn?

Let’s talk about where you can use all the texture you want. Edges! The Boutique Sashay Fringe in particular would be excellent for edges. If you want to make fancy cuffs for your jacket, the edge around a triangular shawl, a ruffle for a throw pillow this works well. With Sashay Fringe you could even do something like make an entire throw pillow. The fur is soft enough that you would be able to get away with it AND it would ruffle causing a plain stockinette throw pillow to look much more complicated than it actually was to knit.

Red Heart Boutique Sashay Fringe yarn would make a perfect edging to a pillow, or ruffles to a shawl.

Throws are a place where you are able to use more than one texture. There are blanket patterns out there that call for several different types of yarn including a few that have a fuzzy texture. This is a design element within the pattern and usually add a bit of pizazz in an otherwise plain blanket. If used in a consistent manner, you could easily integrate a textured yarn into a log cabin throw or a striped pattern. It would have to be repeated in a pattern so it doesn’t look out of place. If you’re doing a striped pattern, make every other, or every 4^th stripe a texture. Then you’re saving yourself from the heartbreak of a 'looks-like-you-ran-out-of-the-right-yarn-so-just-threw-something-random-in' effect.

Red Heart Boutique Fur yarn is so easy to love.

With these points in mind I hope pairing your yarns and patterns together goes a little easier. It has the feel of giving advice when pairing a fine wine to a dish at a restaurant, there are some rules, but it’s about your personal palate. Once you know the rules, you can also experiment with when it's okay to break them.

The right job for the right yarn is so important.

 

Creative Cabled Cowl

The Easiest Cabled Cowl You'll Ever Memorize

First thing I'm giving you on a Monday morning is the pattern for a cabled cowl! A pattern so complicated should be left till later in the week when we’re all awake right? No way! This creative cabled cowl is too beautiful to keep to myself. The classic 18", three-button cowl is the easiest cable cowl you'll ever memorize.

The texture of Red Heart's 'With Love' yarn lends itself perfectly to the Creative Cabled Cowl

materials
1 ball of Red Heart’s With Love in color Iris
1 needle US 9 [5.5mm]
1 tapestry needle 

Cast on 36 stitches and work in a K1P1 seed stitch for an inch ending on a wrong side row.  Continue in seed stitch for 4 stitches, place marker, knit row one of the chart below, place marker and finish last four stitches in seed stitch. Continue starting with 4 stitches in seed stitch then work the next pattern row.

I would suggest knitting until the cowl is 18" in length to give you a nice snug fit to keep you warm on a cold winter day. If you prefer a looser fitting cowl, do as many repeats as you feel comfortable with. When you’re ready to do the buttonholes, stop the chart after row 8 and re-establish your seed stitch. Knit half an inch in seed stitch then place your buttonholes accordingly. 

Row 1: Knit 4 stitch in seed stitch pattern, then bind off three stitches, knit 10 more stitches in seed stitch and bind off three, knit 9 stitches in seed stitch pattern, bind off three and finish last four stitches in seed stitch.

Row 2: Continue in seed stitch pattern until you reach the bound off areas and cast on two stitches using the backwards loop method.

Work in seed stitch for another half inch and bind off. You have to watch yourself and make sure you re-establish the seed stitch after the buttonholes properly or your seed stitch will turn into a rib stitch. 

Now all you have left to do is sew on your buttons! This cowl perfectly covers the space your jacket leaves open to the unforgiving winter winds. We all have a friend who is always cold, keep them warm with this beautiful creative cabled cowl.

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