The pattern is the Spiral Staircase shawl by LizAnn Petch - a free pattern on Ravelry. On the smooth edge, you increase one stitch on every row, which creates a pretty edge, and the curve that you see in the finished scarf.
On the other edge, you cast off ten or so stitches at regular intervals, which controls the width of the scarf/shawl. I wanted it to be a scarf, not a shawl, so I cast off a few more stitches in each step as I went along, so that the width doesn't increase as much as it does in the pattern.
The yarn is Louisa Harding's Amitola (again - I finished Xandy Peters' Petal Cowl in the same yarn in December). It's colourway 106, which is called Seascape. The North Sea, not the Mediterranean, evidently - the colours are quite muted. And it didn't occur to me until I got to Sheringham that it was very appropriate to be knitting in a yarn called Seascape at the seaside. Here's a view of the sea at Sheringham, on Sunday morning when the sun was shining:
The pale browny-grey colour in the scarf, between the two dark grey stripes, seems to me very characteristic of the North Sea.
The self-striping yarn works very well with the pattern - I like the way that the stripes curve across the width of the scarf. I used one ball of Amitola, and the finished scarf goes right round my neck, with the two ends hanging in front. It looks very good - you see diagonal stripes of the different colours of the yarn, and the zigzags around the edge. (Yes, a photo would be a good idea. But I'm trying to find a suitable pin to fasten the two ends together, rather than tying them, or just leaving them to hang - I might get a photo taken when I've found one.) It's very soft and warm, too. And I think I'm getting better at knitting garter stitch - I don't find it easy to keep the stitches even (stocking stitch is much easier) but this is better than previous attempts.
P.S. One of the blogs I follow is Orange Swan's The Knitting Needle and the Damage Done. Many of her posts review knitting magazines, and her comments on the designs are very perceptive, caustic when they need to be, and often very funny. Sometimes I find myself laughing out loud, e.g at "Call me hidebound, but my rule is never to make any knitted garment that sleeps more than two" as a comment on a hugely voluminous top. Worth reading.
Thanks for the clear explanation of how this scarf was made. I have often wondered how the effect was achieved.
ReplyDeleteYes, it's clever. Would be interesting, too, to try to make a scarf more like a staircase, i.e. with equal treads. Might try that some time.
DeleteThat's beautiful and, as you say, very North Sea. I follow the blog you mention and love her sometimes caustic comments! She's not a fan of dropped shoulders!
ReplyDeleteI agree with her on dropped shoulders - they seem very 1980s to me (and not in a good way).
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