A Scarf That’s as Light as Dandelion Fluff!
Continuing our focus on smaller projects for the fall, My Sister Knits has another sample on display! This one can easily be finished in plenty of time for holiday gift giving! It is so very soft and lightweight; it only weighs 2.8 ounces! This scarf offers an excellent learning opportunity for anyone wanting to increase their skills.
Just a Dreamer scarf
The reason this scarf is such a feather weight is that it’s made with the delicacy that is Fluff. Fluff is a collaboration between Les Garcons and A Yarn Story. It’s a blend of Alpaca, Merino wool, Silk, and Yak. Our sample is knit on a size 7 needle rather than the 8 that the designer suggests because Fluff is thinner than the suggested yarn. If you want the garter section to be a bit tighter, you might want to go down to a 6 but remember this will most likely affect the finished size.
The Just a Dreamer scarf, designed by Finnish knitter Sanni Pauliina who has a BA in Design, is 73” long and 10” wide at the widest part. This scarf has three sections. The first one starts with casting on 8 stitches using a long tail cast on. You create a long garter stitch ‘tip’ with yarn over (yo) eyelets every 6th row. Increases are M1L and M1R and yarn overs. A mantra that might help you remember how to do M1L and M1R: ‘I Left the front door open’ and ‘I’ll be Right back’.
Fluff
When you’re done with this long tip, or maybe it might better be called a wing, you get to do a straight section of mosaic. There are no increases or decreases in this section and you can follow written directions or a chart. I’m usually a chart reader but I think I’ll use the written directions for this because, yes, I’m casting on this afternoon! Remember that with mosaic colorwork, you only work with one color per row. Some stitches are slipped from the row before to create the design. Mosaic is one of the prettiest and easiest colorwork techniques and a good place to start your colorwork adventures!
After you’ve finished the mosaic section, there is a gorgeous broken rib wing that decreases to 8 stitches at the end. The decreases used are knit two together (k2tog) and slip, slip, knit (ssk). There are several ways to do an ssk; here’s one and here’s another. Alternatively, you can look it up on YouTube and find a video that you like. The way this section decreases in the middle of your work is stunning! It caught my eye immediately and had me longing to make this scarf.
More Fluff! And we have more colors in the shop!
Sanni is clear about how many times you are to repeat a set of rows. Her instructions are to “repeat another ___ times” so you won’t be confused about the total number of rows to work! She uses an abbreviation that I’m not used to but it’s easy; she says to knit to x amount of stitches bm (before marker). She also advises us to weigh our yarn before we start and she reminds us a couple of times to be sure to match the rib pattern as we’re decreasing. She’s setting us up for success!
Our Sock Drive is gathering steam, thanks to you! We’re keeping it going so bring in those socks to help us reach our goal of donating 1,000 pairs of new socks to the unhoused population here in town who so desperately need them.
Nov. 15th, coming to us from Loveland, Little Squirrel Yarn will be at the shop for a trunk show! We love featuring local independent dyers and can’t wait for you to see Sarah’s yarn!
Nov. 21st is our next Knitting Day from 10 - 2. It’s a great opportunity for some uninterrupted time to work on whatever you want! No need to sign up, you can find us upstairs at My Sister Knits!
There are lots of reasons to drop by My Sister Knits, not the least of which is to choose two colors of Fluff for the Just a Dreamer scarf! Do you want stark contrast or a more subtle one?
Happy knitting,
