Doll’s Knitted Shawl
(See picture opposite [page 72]—color plate)
Material: Four-fold pink Germantown zephyr.
Needles: one pair No. 5 knitting needles, one crochet hook No. 3.
1. Cast on 23 stitches. Knit plain until shawl is 14 inches long; and bind off.
2. Trim ends with fringe, cutting the strands of yarn each 4 inches long. Put 2 strands in every other stitch at ends of shawl and pull through with crochet hook. (See directions for making fringe, [page 69].)
Mary Frances set to work with great pleasure, and before Katie called her to breakfast she had eight rows of knitting done.
After helping Katie to dry the breakfast dishes, she sat in the hammock and did six more rows.
“Won’t Fairly Flew be surprised when she sees this!” she thought as she started upstairs.
The fairy was waiting in the little rocker when she entered the room.
“Oh!” she exclaimed, “isn’t that lovely! You have done some work all by yourself.”
“Yes,” said Mary Frances, “I wanted to surprise you, but somehow it seems to me that the rows I have just knitted do not look quite so even as those I did when I was with you.”
“Let me look at them more closely,” said the fairy, and when Mary Frances laid her work on the table she bent close over it.
“Oh, my dear!” she said in her tiny voice. “Oh, my dear, you have dropped some stitches! See?” and she pointed to the loose threads.
Mary Frances picked up her work and stretched these places open. The stitches ripped apart.
“My, I am so disappointed!” she exclaimed. “What shall I do?”
“You must pull out your needle and rip out all your stitches back to the beginning of the row where you see your first mistake,” said the fairy.
Try as she would, Mary Frances couldn’t keep the tears from coming to her eyes as she ripped out the stitches which she had made with so much pleasure.
“Oh, see how wrinkled the yarn is!” she cried. “I guess it will look awful when it is used again!”
“No,” said the fairy, “it will not. Why, many a grown person has unraveled a whole sweater and used the yarn again.”
“I shouldn’t think used yarn would make anything very nice,” said Mary Frances.
“Yes, it does, if it is steamed.”
“Why, how can it be steamed?” asked the little girl, wondering.
“To steam the crinkles out of used yarn, lay it in a towel. Place the towel in a wire strainer or colander. Place the strainer for five minutes over a kettle of boiling water, but not touching the water. Let the yarn dry in the strainer with the towel open.”
“Isn’t that fine to know!” said Mary Frances. “Shall I go steam this?” She held up the pink yarn.
“No,” replied the fairy. “That has been ripped so soon after making that you will not have any trouble with it. Try, and see.”
So Mary Frances started bravely to work again. When she had done the seven rows which she had ripped out Fairly Flew said, “How well you have done, little girl! Now, you may finish the shawl with my magic needles.”
You can imagine, can’t you, just how pleased Mary Frances was when the fairy’s golden diamond-headed needles finished the shawl in a minute?
All this time Crow Shay had watched with sparkling eyes everything that happened.
Fairly Flew now turned to him and said, “You have been so very good, Crow Shay, that you may make the fringe on this shawl.”
Mary Frances couldn’t help laughing to see the little fellow tumble head foremost into the little shawl and kick the fringe on the ends in less time than it would take to tell you how to do it.
