I took an out-of-town friend to TJ Maxx yesterday and she fell in love with (and bought) a chevron scarf. It was very unusual in that the chevrons were 3-dimensional-- distinct hills and valleys with very defined ridges. She is a “blue” person and it was a solid red, and I would love to make one for her in “her” colour. It was a knit fabric, but possibly felted. It did say to dry-clean only, and we thought that normal washing would likely remove the effect-- but she’s not going to experiment on a $40 scarf:-). She is an extremely experienced sewer and I am an extremely experienced knitter, and neither of us could sort out how it had been done. I have Knitting Never Felt Better and Epstein has some interesting round shapes, even some curved ridges (done after the actual felting, when the piece was still wet, apparently), but not the sharp edges such as in this scarf. Has anyone seen anything like this, or even better, a pattern for it?
This is a small picture, but was it something like this pattern? Or this one? You could make the first one with longer peaks or the second one with wider ridges.
Thanks for the suggestions and links, but no, that’s not what I meant. It’s as if you took something such as strips of cardboard and made roof-tops out of them. I mean, really really 3-dimensional.
That is so hard to visualize. Was it soft? Felted?
Any chance you can get her to email you a picture of it?
I know, it must be hard to imagine it-- neither of us had ever seen anything quite like it. It’s kind of like this http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://denacrain.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/zigzag.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.denacrain.com/blog/%3Fpage_id%3D396&usg=__9hpSpqD4JT9XvozHmyHxDOpSIW4=&h=426&w=500&sz=92&hl=en&start=8&tbnid=vffuuTmrSToi3M:&tbnh=111&tbnw=130&prev=/images%3Fq%3D3%2Bdimensional%2Bzig%2Bzag%26gbv%3D2%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DG
except that the zig-zags were running horizontal, the edges of the scarf were straight, and with the “spines” actually higher-- sloping up like roofs. If you ran your fingers over it, you could feel the rise and fall of each zig-zag.
I will see if she can send me a photo, but because of her traveling, will not be for a while.
How timely is this? I picked up this book from the library last night. some of the stitch patterns are 3-dimentional. none quite look zig zaggy but I wonder if the method isn’t similar to the scarf in question.
http://www.knitpicks.com/cfbooks/book_display.cfm?ID=31268
I couldn’t find any of the projects at ravelry, but at the knitpicks link you can view some of the projects.
In the first block, the stitch used in the skirt of the mini dress is a possibility. it’s called a folded fabric stitch. There’s also a scarf in the book using the same stitch.
Also rather 3-D looking is the mustard yellow scarf in the 2nd block of pics.
How about this scarf?
http://www.knitpicks.com/cfpatterns/pattern_display.cfm?ID=30986222
I found it at ravelry by searching Lynne Barr, the arthur of Reversible Knitting. This particular scarf is from a different book, Knitting New Scarves.
That’s very much like what we saw!!! Thank you!!! I’m not sure how to translate that into chevrons, but I’m going to give it a go.
sounds suspiciously like shadow knitting to me …