Loom Knitting - Jan 2013 Monthly Challenge

The Challenge for January, as the title states, is loom knitting. Loom knitting is a way to make things with a loom that you would otherwise crochet or knit with hooks or needles, only, on a loom! Duh, right? Well, anyways, my bff was working on a scarf right before New Years and I saw and was immediately intrigued! I asked what she was doing, and if she could teach me!!

The funny thing is, I've been doing something similar for years, only not in such a large scale or as nice. The other funny thing? You guys have already seen what that particular form is!:

Simple finger weaving I did to make Halloween garland decorations.

Some of the Christmas garland I made and put up around the fireplace, over the valance/curtains and under the bar like I did for Halloween. I got the yarn that changes color between red, white and green, and had the silver tinsley type pieces in there.

 As soon as my bff showed me how to do it, why, I went straight to my local Joanns, coupons in hand, and purchased 2 skeins of a super soft, gorgeous teal colored yarn and a 10" straight loom. She got me started and over the weekend, I made this:

It's such a simple thing, making a loom knit scarf. The 2nd picture shows what the weave looks like when stretched out, but bc the weave is so loose (due to my plastic loom having far set pegs), it most of the time rolls in on itself on the sides. That's ok though, because this wonderful 13 foot long scarf when worn, makes me just wanna curl up in it it's soooo soft!!

The next one I made was the same pattern, only, I added fringe this time! Once you realize where to put it, in between the rows at the ends, it's not that hard. The hardest part is getting them trimmed about the same length. I made it for a friend at work and she LOVES it! That's definitely a job well done I'd say!!

  
The next one I did, was for a guy friend in our group that fell in love with the idea of having a scarf custom-made when he saw mine over New Years and said that he would really really like one in a green that matches our friend's motorcycle. I did the same pattern as the previous two, only, a type of doubled wrap. The wrap just skips pegs and when you do a full row, covering all the pegs, it somehow makes the scarf look like it's 2 layered! Amazing!!:

I really liked how that doubled up look turned out so I went another step up and wanted to do 2 colors at the same time!! It started looking pretty neat:

However, things turned way sour when the tightness of the 2 strands of yarn made the looping around the pegs a little too tight:

As soon as I heard that snap and realized what happened, I almost started tearing up!! NOOOO!!! I couldn't believe I just did that!!! Mannn.... that meant I had to go back to Joanns and get another loom! :( But that's ok, I ended up getting more yarn anyways as their sales and coupons were still going pretty good for the New Year!!

The next scarf I started, I used the suggestion from the friend that got the green one earlier. He stated that the owner of the motorcycle we matched to wanted one also! Only, he wanted a gold stripe in his, not centered. I tried about 3 times and on the 3rd time finally decided on a way to make this scarf:

 

 

 

I had looked up different ways to add a vertical stripe online and on YouTube, however, I ended up just figuring it out myself the way I wanted to wrap and the above picture shows the weave I decided on. What you can't really tell, is that where the gold stripe is, there was a doubling up so that it was thicker than the rest of the green part. The way I fixed this was wrapping the gold around the 4 sets of pegs, then doubling back on the middle 2. Then I wrapped the top 2 sets of pegs green, went around the first and last set of gold pegs to overlap (so as to mic the 2 colors into the pattern and not create a gap the whole way down) and wrapped down, back up and skipped over the gold pegs on the way back. Then before tucking over to create the row, I wrapped the green a whole row again. Once I finished this 2-layered row, I was done and would proceed to loop over the pegs to finish the row. 

Once I finish with the whole scarf, I can post a how-to if anyone's interested in seeing exactly how I did it, with picture step-by-steps. Also, I have not been approached by this friend, and as far as I know, he doesn't even know I'm making this for him! I can't wait to see the look on his face!

Once I get these 2 scarves done, I have another 1 planned to make for one of the managers at my office (an exact match to the 2nd scarf with fringe), and then the colors/yarn/ideas for about 5-6 more scarves. If I make all of these, it will add up to 11-12 total scarves which would fulfill my January Challenge!! Stay tuned!!