Martha and Me

I have to confess to a general ignorance of things famous: movie stars, pop stars . . . you'd think I'd been living on a different planet for the past forty years. But I have heard of Martha Stewart--not that I'd easily recognise something designed by her. Recently Bec at Sticks and Stones featured a Martha Stewart pattern. She said, " it hardly used any yarn and was a fun quick knit." That sounded attractive. I was particularly intrigued by the clever loop design which allows the scarflet to secure itself. I decided to commit a ball of hand-dyed baby yarn to the project as an experiment.

It was a fun quick knit. All except for the last five minutes or so when I found myself playing chicken  with the end of the skein of yarn. It was a that point that I registered the fact that my ball of baby yarn was only 25 grams rather than the 50 grams or so called for in the pattern. I'd taken the comment "hardly any yarn" a little too literally. It was enough, but only just. In the interest of saving yarn I didn't repeat the ribbed loop on the second end. And my anxiety about running out of yarn resulted in a considerable tightening of my knitted tension. Anyway, there are enough attractive features that I'll be keen to play with the design a bit more. By the time I streamline and embellish the ends of the scarf and add a bit of length it will no longer be recognisable as Martha Stewart. That's the way I like to play the game.