Double Helix Ruffles

(to be fair, I've noted that another blogger noted the "double helix" comparison earlier - cool)

Hi,

I'm new to the knit along and new to knitting! In fact, my very first project is a rendition of the popular "Ruffles" scarf. A few inches into it, I became curious to see what other people were doing with it, and I was delighted to stumble onto this blog. Seeing all the different "Ruffles" variations you've all come up with, as well as the other projects, has been fun and inspiring.

I've always wanted to knit, but never got to do it. But recently, I graduated from my college in Chicago and moved out to a small school somewhere in Wisconsin for graduate work - without a car and without the ability to drive (Spent most of my life in Taiwan, where every corner had a 7-11.) I've been finding all sorts of creative outlets to keep me sane - kiting, embroidery, music...and knitting! Together with a few brief "Learn to Knit" beginner booklets, I bought two first books, and the ones that made me feel inspired were Scarf Style and Loop-d-Loop. I started "Ruffles" first, and in the meantime started and finished a cowl from the other book.

I wanted a first project that would be challenging enough to hold my attention, attractive enough to motivate me, and straightforward enough that I wasn't going to get a headache trying to read charts. After a few hours of teaching myself knitting and purling, I tried to begin three times. The fourth time, I tried the cable cast-on, and it was a success.

But after a few rows, I desperately wanted the spine to be a different color. So that's what I've tried to do. In the picture, there are some stitches where I screwed up the travelling yarns a bit, but for the most part, I got both sides to look the same and moderately neat. Also, my stitches are not very perfect yet. In the more recent rows, I've been practicing combination knitting on one side and western on the other. I'm having trouble making knit and purl rows exactly the same tension, and keeping both legs of the stitch the same tension.

Yarn is Classic Elite Montera (wool/alpaca)in four different colors (a light blue not shown) - yes, it's a rather heavier yarn than recommended (because I didn't understand yarn labels back then!) but aside from the scarf being heavier, I do like the stiffness it adds to the structure.

My dream right now is that someday, the experience I gain from working this project will allow me to create a scarf that looks like DNA.

Obviously, I am having way too much fun :-)