In my assorted wools bag I had several nice things - one ball each, of course :) There was a wonderfully soft wool/cashmere/angora blend - one ball each in baby-blue and very pale violet bulky weight. It had a content tag but no label or brand. Also there were two balls of rustic, sport weight alpaca in a deep blue-green color. What to do with this assortment?
Make a scarf, of course :)
I used broken rib stitch which I have admired but never tried before. The resulting fabric does tend to pull in the way regular ribbing does, only not quite as much. Oh, and despite a garter selvedge, the fabric rolls. But, that’s easily dealt with :)
Broken Rib
On an odd number of stitches…
Row 1 (RS): Knit
Row 2 (WS): *K1, P1; repeat from *, end K1
Variations could be introduced by changing the number of knits or purls on the wrong-side rows and it does make a handsome fabric though I was surprised to see how different the wool blend part and the alpaca part looked from one another. I shouldn’t have been though; the wool blend was a very smooth, highly processed yarn and the alpaca was somewhat rough (in a non-elegant sense, not a next-to-the-skin sense), loosely spun and hairy. I was also using two strands of the alpaca together to approximate the weight of the bulky blend and that further blurred the appearance of things.
This is smooth and clean - every stitch shows clearly.
This presents a much fuzzier appearance and individual stitches no longer stand out. Still, the feel of the fabric is quite silky and the color is gorgeous.
I wound up knitting the colors end to end and finishing off with a crocheted border. I like the end-to-end treatment because it makes for interesting wrapping possibilities as in the picture below - but I also didn’t want to be working in bulky yarn ends all over the scarf and carrying the yarn up the side never works the way it’s supposed to for me. The crocheted border (one round of single crochet, one round of half-double crochet with increases in the corners) added a bit of necessary extra width and another touch of color.
Heheh…I’m beginning to sound pompous here. Basically, all I was doing was trying to combine 4 balls of very nice but quite different yarn into a harmonious and usable whole. I think it worked :)
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that looks most warm and comfy- i’ve seen but never used the mistake rib- well, i’ve certainly made my share of mistakes in ribbing, but you know what i mean- yours came out beautifully with real definition to it-
isn’t it interesting how a color like your lovely lilac can synchronize with others and just make all the difference in the world between a nice 2-toned scarf and something really nifty-
stay happy-
Barb - I really wanted to use the lilac in the body of the scarf but it was just slightly leaner than the blue and I was afraid of too much of a gauge difference. I was pleased to realize it would work with the seep teal as well as the blue because that one little ball all by itself would probably never have gotten used up otherwise :) Lucked out again!
Robbyn, that DEFINITELY worked. Gorgeous!
Thanks Rob - In theory, I kind of get a kick out of the “let’s throw everything together and see how it looks” kind of thing. In practice, it makes me nervous though sometimes something beautiful or interesting does result.
I sense no pompousity! The scarf is just lovely!!! 
Christine - Why thank you! 
It is totally lovely. What an incredibly great idea to use those extra yarns!
Mary Lynn - I’m just pleased it worked out reasonably well. SOme of my color combinations don’t play together nearly as nicely! LOL!
