Knitting with Eartha and Jasmine

Since I finished the Honeycomb lace infinity scarf that I wrote about in my last post, I have been thinking about what to knit with the two balls of alpaca DK yarn that I got as a Christmas present - I wrote about them here.    Some sort of scarf seemed the best choice - there isn't enough yarn for anything big, and it is very soft and warm, just right for a cosy scarf.  There is no yardage on the ballband, so I don't know how far the yarn will go - probably not very far.  So I needed a design that would allow me to stop knitting whenever the yarn runs out. I also wanted to make a feature of the two colours - each ball is labelled with the name of the alpaca that it came from, and Eartha is a darker brown than Jasmine.   I decided that the design had to use both colours equally, and at the same time.   After a lot of deliberation and experimentation, I came up with a 'two-tone' design for a scarf.   I started with a provisional cast on, so that I can join the two ends when I have finished to make a loop.

I switch from one colour to the other in the middle of the row, intarsia fashion.   I wanted something a bit more interesting than stocking stitch or garter stitch, and I chose a zigzag stitch.  It's a very simple k3, p3 rib, but after every two rows, I move the pattern one stitch to the right or the left, depending on whether I'm on a zig or a zag.

I had to knit two or three swatches before I got the changeover to look neat.  It's hard to change colours while also doing a zigzag, and not have the light brown straying into the dark brown or v.v.  I haven't quite managed to achieve that on both sides, but one side is perfect.

Apart from the (very slightly) untidy changeover on one side, the knitting is reversible.  But in fact, I don't think that is going to matter much, because probably when the yarn runs out what I'll have is a cowl.   We'll see.  More later.