The accidental designer

When I first started knitting I must have made at least a dozen scarves in feathers and mohair and wool and every other yarn imaginable. I learned to cheat and take short-cuts from the very beginning.

I struggled with the then-new feather yarn initially until I realised how much easier it would be if I alternated a few rows of feather yarn with regular wool and other novelty yarns in toning colours.

"Wow! What a fantastic idea, to make a textured stripe scarf!" commented one person.

Oh yes, OF COURSE, that's what I was trying to do...

Still struggling with feathers, I found it was easier if I knitted it with a strand of 8-ply yarn in a toning colour. The added bonus was that I could knit on much larger needles and finish the scarf faster.

I then combined 8-ply wool with 12-ply mohair (as I only had a couple of balls of mohair and needed to stretch it), knitted on extra-large needles for speed (and created a fashionable lacy look). The I discovered the drop-stitch.

A shop assistant at Spotlight mentioned that I didn't need to bother alternating knit and purl rows when using loopy mohair or other fancy yarns because the stitches were invisible under all the texture. Wow! What a good idea.

The praise kept coming as people misinterpreted my every act of laziness and cheapskateness for creativity.

Then I got bored.