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So, for Father’s Day I decided to make my Dad some golf club covers. I looked at a few patterns online like the Window Pane intarsia pattern by Ann V. Gallentine and the Fairway Fair Isles on Knitty by Mary Edwards. And after my recent success with adapting a pattern for Mom’s Birthday Cardigan, I decided I’d just make up my own since I knew the basic measurements I needed. I decided to use some cheap Red Heart worsted weight acrylic yarn that I have from my previous and brief knitting stint before I had discovered that there is much nicer yarn (acrylic and otherwise) to be had. I figured that it would be perfect for golf club covers because it can go in the washing machine and dryer and it doesn’t matter how soft they are since they won’t be worn. So I knit up a swatch, figured out my gauge, wrote up a pattern and got started.

My first go at the set was a complete disaster. For one thing, I hadn’t payed enough attention to the Window Pane pattern or any of my knitting books for that matter, because I didn’t realize that intarsia can’t be knit in the round until I started doing it and let’s just say it wasn’t pretty. The yarn was unpleasant to work with; it literally squeaks and just doesn’t feel good. And although the numbers were kinda funky I thought they were looking better and so I just knit away, trying to get all three done in about as many days. Here is what I ended up with (turned upside down to spare you the sight of intarsia in the round):

Same yarn, same needles, same number of stitches, same number of rows. I have no excuse. I know I’ve had gauge issues in the past. I knew the numbers looked funky but somehow I thought they’d even out in the end. I didn’t bother to measure or compare sizes because I wanted to get the darned things done and I’d swatched for goodness sake. Yes, I know, there’s a river in Egypt called de Nile. Stephen, upon viewing these three laid out said, “Uh, honey, which size are they supposed to be?” I told him they weren’t really supposed to be any of those sizes, they were just supposed to all be the same! It was at some point around then as I started frogging that I was muttering about the golf club covers and in my fatigue and frustration referred to them as “golf cluvvers.” That made me giggle and I decided to keep the name.

In any case I did a bit of research and found out why intarsia in the round doesn’t work. I decided to ignore row counts and just work on making them the same size. I got out some graph paper and drew up new charts for the numbers since I wanted them a bit more rounded than the ones I had found online. I don’t really remember at this point which ones got frogged completely and which ones only part of the way but some work was able to be salvaged. I adapted my pattern so that it would be knit in the round and then back and forth for the intarsia then rejoined in the round with just a small seam to sew up at the end. I had about four books on the coffee table in front of me open to their various sections on intarsia and how to add colors and twist and knit in ends and finally, two days after Father’s Day, I finished:

I think the 3 ended up a bit shorter than the others but not bad.

Up close:

And it sure isn’t perfect but I’m rather proud of the intarsia in the end:

I gave them to Dad tonight and he was thrilled with them. I was glad to hear that he approved of my decision not to put pom-poms on top. He and my mom were thoroughly impressed with the two colored knitting and self improvised pattern and I’m proud that I figured the darned things out in the end. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to pack up my cheap squeaky acrylic yarn to drop at Goodwill.

Tags: Knitting //