Irish hiking gifts

This Irish hiking scarf and matching wrist warmers are for my mother-in-law. The only modification I made to the Hello Yarn Irish hiking scarf pattern was to use "uneven cables" which I found in Barbara Walker's Treasury of Knitting Patterns. Instead of putting 3 stitches on a cable needle and knitting the next 3 before knitting the 3 from the cable needle, you put 2 stitches on the cable needle and knit the next 4. I like the way these cables turn out, and they're a bit easier to do. I went with a 6-row repeat, as opposed to the 8-row cables in the Hello Yarn pattern.

The finished scarf is about 60" long. The ends don't fan out much because I did the first cable row on row 3 (the Hello Yarn pattern has you do it at row 8). Likewise I ended the scarf 2 rows after the last cable row.


I improvised a matching wrist warmer pattern, after a botched attempt at modifying the wrist warmer pattern from Last Minute Knitted Gifts. The wrist warmers I made are 36 stitches around (3 repeats of the 12-stitch cable pattern). I started at the arm, and after 22 rounds began increasing for the thumb gusset. I increased 2 stitches every other round until there were 42 stitches. In round 35 I bound off 8 stitches at the thumb, and in round 36 I cast on 2 stitches to complete the circle. After another 10 rounds, I bound off.

1/15/07 EDITED TO ADD: I have posted the complete pattern.


Irish hiking scarf
Started: Nov. 1(?)
Finished: Nov. 30(?)
Pattern: From Hello Yarn
Yarn: Bernat Satin, Sterling, 3 skeins (used very little of the 3rd skein)
Needles: US 8 Addi Turbos

Irish hiking wrist warmers
Started: Dec. 1(?)
Finished: Dec. 9
Pattern: My own
Yarn: Bernat Satin, less than 1 skein
Needles: US 8 dpns