Totally Tubular Sock Yarn Eater

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Totally Tubular Sock Yarn Eater

by Valérie Colette Miller

www.knitbug.com

I was looking for a way to use up various left over sockyarns (and some handspun) in a single project, and had long thought of knitting a scarf/shawl hybrid with crazy stripes. The "wrong" side of striped knitting sometimes irks me a little, so I decided to knit a tube on circular needles to essentially double the warmth and squish-factor of the sockyarn (oh, how I love merino’s squishiness!!) and avoid there ever being a “wrong” side to the stripes.

I used a folded knitted hem to avoid any rolling or the edges at both ends.

Quick recipe for the Tubular Sockyarn Eater:

I used approx. 7 skeins of sock yarn (exact yarns are named here). But of course you can use however many skeins of whichever weight you'd like.

· With size US 7 24” circular needles, cast on as many stitches as you would like, so long as you can join them to knit in the round. I cast on 188 stitches. However, I'm "petite" (barely 5'4), and you may want to cast on more for a larger width. For reference, with my size 7 needles I had an average gauge of 5.5 sts per inch (blocked).

· Join to knit in the round and place marker at beginning of round.

· Knit in plain stockinette with your first colour for approx. 5 inches, then work a knitted hem. (Sandi Wiseheart offers excellent instructions on knitted hems here: http://www.knittingdaily.com/blogs/daily/archive/2008/04/16/adding-a-no_2D00_roll-hem-to-a-stockinette-sweater.aspx

· Once the knitted hem is complete, continue knitting in the round, changing colours at the beginning of round as often as you please. You can of course have evenly spaced colour stripes of the same, consistent width, but I didn't feel like counting and enjoyed the randomness of the colour placement and different stripe widths.

· Continue knitting in the round, alternating colours, until you’re happy with the length, or almost out of yarn, whichever comes first :) If the little jog of colour when you start a new stripe bothers you, Sandi’s written another great tutorial on knitting joggless stripes in the round, found here :http://www.knittingdaily.com/blogs/daily/archive/2009/07/03/knitting-in-the-round-jogless-stripes.aspx

· Finish with a knitted hem. I got lazy near the end an opted to fold and seam with a darning needle. But you can certainly use a three-needle-bind-off!

Copyright Valérie Colette Miller 2010

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