…and use the reccomended yarn weight!

Meet Ricky, who came in for a crochet lesson with me this week, so that he could make flowers to embellish his amazing knit cabled scarf.

That’s me holding the “scarf” (and laughing hysterically). Because well, Ricky is a new knitter and he held four strands of worsted weight yarn together (instead of the 1 strand the pattern called for) not realizing how drastically that would change the finished size. And so, this “scarf”  is now a beautiful baby blanket for a friend who just gave birth. And we may somehow deck it out in crochet flowers to make it more girly, although I tried to convince him it is just lovely as is. But hey, I’ll take any chance I can to hook people when they’re interested.

Now, this turned into a happy accident/creative challenge, and the blanket is beautiful, so no problems there. But when you’re picking yarn for a project, always go with the recommended weight category and check your gauge to make sure you’ll end up with something that’s the same size as the finished item. (Second hint: LOOK at the finished size on the pattern! Many people never do, and it tells you exactly what you’re making, which may be a different size than you were visualizing).

Many thanks to Ricky for letting me use him as a cautionary tale–it was just too perfect an example not to document it. Can you believe this is only his fourth knitting project?  I see lots of great knitting and crochet in his future!