Mimi Verylong

Time for a new pattern, don't you think? This one is the result of my realization that designing a lace shawl a la Charlotte is really, really hard. I combed all my stitch pattern books and finally found this as part of a stitch in some obscure Knitting Dictionary I'd bought at a garage sale. After I'd finished the first scarf [I've already knit two of these], I found the same stitch exactly as I'd knit it in the Mary Thomas book. So much for innovation! [click any pic for a bigger version]

Anyway, my rule for lace is that the back side must always be straight knit or purl, so i get a break from the thinking of the pattern. The front in this case is painfully easy, but i just love the diagonal lines it creates. So though it's repetitive, the knitting goes SO fast and the big bonus is that you can use laceweight yarn and still create something fashionable quickly. It's long enough that you can wrap it once or twice [or even three times] around your neck, but it's light and comfy to wear.

The edge biases naturally, and I quite like it, especially with the fringe treatment. I tried to do a traditional fringe, but it kept getting badly knotted and gross, so i braided each section. Voila! Design feature! Plus it's fun to play with.

The model shown is knit in Blue Heron fine cotton. One huge skein would make at least two scarves. I've also knit one in Ellyn Cooper's Yarn Sonnets [ain't THAT a hell of brand name?] Canasta in [get this] the Girl Power colorway. I adore it. It's a slightly thick/thin quite fine yarn and it's got a really nice sponginess that the Blue Heron one doesn't. They're both great, and I find myself wearing the Blue Heron one all the time. Freeform pattern follows. Do not agonize over details, or I will come over there and poke you.

Mimi Verylong

Size: nebulous
width= impossible to measure. it stretches infinitely, but mostly relaxed it's about 7.5" wide
length = around 84" long. it should start and end at your knees [at the lowest] and wrap once or twice around your neck.

Materials:
- Approximately 500 yards of very fine yarn
[I used Blue Heron Mercerized Cotton in Leaf and Ellyn Cooper's Canasta in Girl Power for another version.]
- US#9 needles

Cast on 43 stitches. (pattern repeat is 2 sts, plus 7 for the selvedges)
row 1: purl
row 2: k3, *k2tog, yo*, repeat to last 4 sts, k4.
row 3: purl
row 4: k4, *k2tog, yo*, repeat to last 3 sts, k3.

Repeat these four rows until scarf is very, very long. Purl last row. Bind off loosely.

To add fringe, cut a whole huge pile of 12" long pieces of the same yarn. Take 5 strands, fold them in half and loop them through the natural hole between the diagonal ribs. Braid fringe if you wish, knotting at the bottom. [Here's a tutorial on a more involved fringe treatment, but if you just loop the fringe as in the 2nd picture down, that's what I'm talking about here.]

The Mimi Verylong, like the fall Knitty surprise, may be distributed freely under the terms of this Creative Commons license, which means you may not sell it or make any derivative works from it and this copyright notice must stay with the pattern. For any other use, please contact me.
Copyright me, Amy R Singer, 2004. Thank you most kindly.