Tiger’s eye & tobacco pizzaz...

I know it doesn't have the same ring to it!
There was a lull in the action here yesterday and I had a few moments to knock off a scarf. Now, being a small town girl from Northwestern Ontario, it’s taken me a while to get my head around wearing a scarf as a fashion accessory, rather than a winter necessity - here, winter usually means close to 6 months of the year, so by the time you can leave that winter scarf off, it’s not soon enough!
I really liked Ev McNabb’s ‘Shiraz Pizzaz’ from No 50 and I loved the weight the beads added to the ends. Last week, I knit one in Panama, same as Ev’s pattern, but I used a tuck lace of my own, same number of needles as hers. Mine turned out too wide because, instead of every other needle like Ev’s, my needle arrangement had 2 needles out of work in some spots and 4 together in others which made mine heavier and wider. I liked the resulting look, but needed it to be thinner yarn. Experimenting with Yeoman’s Janerio, I found it’s perfect! (3750m/500g cone, quite fine, 50% viscose (rayon), 25% linen, 25% acrylic)
I used the stitch pattern from ‘Cocoa Beach’, No 42, 92 sts wide and 700 rows. It took about 20 minutes to knit and five to steam press it out. The great thing about Janerio is, it really flattens and stays, because of the linen, I think, giving a nice ‘loft’ to the scarf. I had tracked down some beads - it seems the key is to find beads with holes that your yarn will fit through and then, how to get the beads onto the yarn? Ev said she ended up stripping a twist tie to get a thin wire that would loop the yarn and pass through her beads. The beading needles I found were all pretty fine and the yarn wouldn’t go through the eye. A flash from the past!!! we used to use dental floss threaders to show beginners how to thread the loopers in a serger, back in the day... I dashed out and got some - worked slick!!
While watching ‘So you think you can dance, Canada’ - yes, we have our own version and it’s fabulous - after fringing, I put two ends of yarn in the loop, threaded my sequence of beads on the firm, straight end and pulled them easily onto the yarn, knotted it off and Bob’s your uncle!!