Stash Bustin' Scarf and Bad Kitties

I guess it isn't all their fault, I did leave the yarn around for them to get to. It could have been so much worse, I walked into the living room today to find my two scoundrels playing with a small ball of black yarn.

I've seen at least three girls in one day wearing cute, super long, thin, vertically striped, machine knit scarves at work. I think they look pretty cool. I was checking one out and realized first that it was machine knit and then that it was knit side to side with lots of color changes. Been there done that, definitely not doing it again. So I decided to make my own and knit it longwise. I picked these colors because I think they go nice together. I may have to toss in some WOTA natural to give it a little bit of a color break. I'll decide as I go.

I have 80 grams of the green, just under 50 grams of the bright blue (blue bonnet WOTA from KnitPicks-left over clog stash), 40 grams of the dusty blue (the label is gone but it's probably rain) and lots of black.

Here's my formula. On a previous project (same yarn, same needles and I liked the fabric) I was getting 4 stitches to the inch. I would like my scarf to be at least 7ft long. 7*12 = 84". 84" x 4" = 336 number of stitches to cast on.

Then I figured for every foot of the long tail I left I could cast on 16 stitches 350 (I rounded 336 up to nice round number) /16 = 21 feet or 7 yards. I used the old hand to shoulder measuring method and added an extra yard for security.

I had a little over a yard of the tail left when I had cast on 350 stitches so I added 50 more for total cast on of 400.

The only way 400 will be a problem is if I run out of yarn before I finish and when I go to cast off. I bet I'm going to hate casting off.

I'm going to starting knitting tonight. A mindless or mindnumbing garter stitch. I plan to weigh the black ball before I start the first row and then again when I'm done to see how much yarn a row chews up. I have other colors I can add in if I need to. There's plenty of stash to go around.

I was knitting this scarf in my dreams last night so I have to get started on it.