Ireland, Here I Come!!

Here is my completed Irish Hiking Scarf, knit in Irish Moss coloured yarn.


This scarf was probably the hardest project I have undertaken in my knitting career, but not because of the cables. Those were actually fairly easy (although most impressive looking I must admit). No, the tricky part was more that I was making a pattern in the scarf and any mistake would stand out. My other projects have either been felted (which hides all mistakes) or else socks (where I manage to fudge through my mistakes and doubt they would be noticeable to anyone but me). So for this project, when I knit where I was supposed to purl or purled when I was supposed to knit, I had to learn how to purposefully drop a stitch and pick it back up in the way to make the desired stitch. As a knitter, dropping a stitch is something you work very hard not to do so I really had to talk myself up before dropping stitches, especially when it was many rows back. But I finished it and I like the way it looks - and it will definitely keep me warm walking the foggy roads of Ireland (<-- subtle hint to my husband).

I had a little yarn left over so I decided to try to make a matching hat. Can't have a cold head in Ireland!!

I have no idea if I will have enough yarn to complete this hat but still, I knit on. This is when I realized that I do 'fingers-crossed' knitting or 'optimistic-thinking' knitting. Otherwise, I would be stressing out after every row, picking up and squeezing the skein of yarn to try to figure out if I will have enough to finish. Knitting should be relaxing, so I will continue knitting my hat and know that I will have more than enough yarn.