Lunaria

I love designing, but sometimes I get stuck in an item rut.  You know, sock after sock pattern or just too many mittens in a row.  I love it when people give me ideas of items to design, especially if it’s a type of item that I’ve never made before, like leg warmers or a shawl.  Last Thanksgiving, my aunt was admiring my Snowflake Gloves and Wintergreen Gloves, which I had given to my sister.  My aunt said that she loved fingerless gloves for walking the dog but what she really needed was a hooded scarf, maybe with pockets to put the gloves in.  I jumped at the idea- a matching pair of fingerless gloves and a hooded scarf.

 

And it only took me one year to complete!

 

I finished the design for the gloves fairly quickly; per request, the colors were rich purples and cheery pinks.  The actual execution of the design took a lot longer.  Deadlines kept popping up and the gloves got pushed aside time and again.  I got one finished but then didn’t finish the second until two months later!  The scarf design went slower.  I wanted the same color work pattern from the gloves, but I detest knitting back and forth with two yarns.  I knew I’d never get it done if I did it that way.  On the other hand, I didn’t want to knit the entire scarf in fingering yarn in the round- that could take forever!  I eventually settled on working the color work in the round for the pockets and keeping the rest of the scarf in a solid color with a cushy stitch pattern.  What resulted is a hooded, pocketed scarf with no sewing or flat stranded knitting required.  So, exactly one year after I took on the glove and scarf project, I finished and presented them to my (very patient) aunt.  She loved them!

 

Lunaria is now up for sale at Knit Picks as a combined pattern set.  Both use seven colors of Palette yarn.  The scarf is worked with a double strand of yarn throughout, so it works up faster.

 

     

 

The hooded scarf has two color work pockets and a dense slip stitch rib pattern for the main body. The slip stitch pattern is completely reversible, as are the pockets. The whole scarf, including the pockets, is worked with the yarn held doubled. The two halves of the scarf are made, then the hood is cast on between them and the whole hood is worked together with the scarf halves to the end. A three-needle bind off neatly avoids having to sew the hood together.

 

   

 

The gloves are worked with a single strand.  They feature a long ribbed cuff, accented with a few stripes, and a traditional side thumb gusset, increased every third row.

 

  

 

The pair of projects is named after the flower the Annual Honesty , or Lunaria annua, which has four petals ranging from white to deep purple when in bloom. The seeds are papery, translucent sliver discs in the winter, giving it its other common name in America, “Silver Dollars.”