Mission accomplished: part two...

Ta dah!  This is the infinity scarf that I managed to knit with the rest of the "horrible yarn" that Fiona of the FC Knits blog sent to me as a challenge.  This was a 50g ball of J. C. Brett's Classic Lace Knitting yarn. It was definitely the most difficult yarn I have ever knitted with.  It is a ladder lace i.e. 2 very thin strands joined together at regular intervals.

I researched what other knitters have made with this type of yarn.  Cowls and scarves won the vote.  I started by trying to knit a cowl on a circular needle but the yarn just caught on the joins in the needle.  So I used size 8mm straight needles, cast on 30 stitches and simply knitted rows of garter stitch until the yarn was used up.  The result is quite spectacular and my photo doesn't really do it justice.  There are 150 metres of yarn in one 50g ball and the finished scarf measured 50 inches or 127 cms long.  I thought that was pretty amazing.

One of my nieces will be 18 in May and I am planning to add this to her presents.  She has the typical Celtic colouring of pale skin and dark hair.  This black, silver and pink scarf will suit her perfectly.  She is very fashionable so I made the scarf a little more special by sewing the two ends together to form a type of infinity scarf.  I decided not to twist the scarf before joining the ends as I thought the ladders would become very tangled and stick to each other like velcro.  The scarf is just long enough to wrap twice around the neck and it hangs beautifully.  My daughter who is 2 years older assures me that my niece will love it.

Thanks again, Fiona.  I have to admit that I probably might have given up with this yarn if it hadn't been sent to me as a challenge!  I've estimated there are approximately 3000 stitches in this scarf.  Almost every stitch had to be pulled away from its neighbour before I could knit it.  I'm really pleased with how this has turned out and even more pleased that it is finished.  Woo hoo!