Fun fur and knit stich only vs seed stitch.

[caelidh]

Greetings, I am new,,,

my question.
Why use the seed stitch pattern when creating fun fur scarves when you could just do knit stitch??

I was doing a lionbrand pattern ( I am a beginner basically) and thought I would tackle the "beginner" pattern on one the packages...

As I tried to tackle it from going from alternating knit to purl.. getting lost among all the "fun fur"... I found I was adding stitches inadvertently...

If you can't see the stitch.. what would be the point in making it more difficult? Is there a reason?

I am new to this list... Thanks in advance to my question..

[amy]

Welcome Caelidh!

That's an excellent question. You don't want to do stockinette stitch (knitting one row, then purling the next) because your scarf will curl into a tube. But garter stitch (knitting every row) will work just fine, and is certainly easier to execute than seed stitch!

Amy

[christine]

I too wanted to venture out and try something new, so I did a scarf in that fun fur (Lyon Brand). I tried following the pattern on the label, but becasue it was stocking -- curl city. So after about 6 inched into the project, I switched to garter stitch. Other than no curling (yeah), I did find it wasn't as fluffy as when I was stocking stitch. Prehaps it was only the kntter's critial eye
christine

[Phretys]

I just finished a Fun Fur scarf tonight, in fact! It was done in stripes the long way and it was mostly garter stitch (plus a row of groups of K2tog and YO for the last row of each stripe to make it wavy). I think it looks great. I can post a photo after I add the fringe tomorrow.

[caelidh]

Thanks for your response. Actually though, it was Knit a stitch, purl a stitch all along the row. Not just a knit row and then purl row.

I found it challenging with the fun fur to alternate between the stitches on the same row. I couldn't see or remember what I had done.

I wonder why whoever made the pattern made it so difficult.

Another strange thing (this is with Lion brand) is that on the front of the label it says use an 11 needle but on the actual pattern instructions it says a 10 or 10 1/2.

Oh well

I am just doing the knit stitch and it is working okay.

Thanks

[amy]

Yes, I understood you, that they wanted you to alternate knit and purl along the row. I just meant to warn you against trying stockinette stitch as an alternative. Definitely what you're doing, garter stitch, is the easiest way. Good decision!

Amy

[caelidh]

Oh.. thanks

Yeah. I am familiar with the rolling.

what a pain.

:>)

I am still learning the skill...

Peace

[Marnie]

I've been looking around the Lion Brand site and I think you might be knitting this scarf
http://www.lionbrand.com/cgi-bin/lio...slitScarf.html

I notice it's a 1-skein scarf and I believe the seed stitch is intentional. While you can't tell the difference visually, garter stitch will produce a shorter scarf lengthwise than seed stitch. You can see this realy well if you grab some non-fuzzy yarn and knit a swatch of 20 stitches x 20 rows in each stitch pattern.

Garter stitch (knit every row) is quite wide compared to many other stitches but is very compressed legthwise.

Seed stitch has a similar width but more legth, probably close to twice as long.

if you have 2 skeins of yarn, it probably won't matter, but it's something to consider when choosing your stitch.

[caelidh]

Yup.. that is the scarf. Thanks for the reasoning... I like to know the logic behind things...

I am just going to do knit stitch and see how it turns out. I need to get used to the fun fur.. it can be difficult to knit.

I wonder if it would be easier to crochet it?

thanks :>)

[Hildegard_von_Knittin]

hi! I'm new too. One of the things I found helpful when i was first getting used to fun fur was to knit with a strand of fun fur and a strand of something else, like lion brand wool ease sportweight. It WAS wierd doing the double strand thing, but the fun fur is so thin that it didn't seem like a double strand. Anyway as a beginner I was scared to try anything but scarves, so i made a bajillion this way, and it made knitting easier (for me). The only thing is that you don't get that fluffy-n-furriness as you would with just the fur. Just my 2 cents!