It seems to have taken me forever to get
this baby off the needles. Aran patterns take
time with all those intricate cables and designs, but when you’re done they’re totally
worth it.
I don’t use traditional weight Aran wool as
it bulks up too much for my liking so I downsize
to something closer to a double knitting weight. On this occasion I’ve used
some wool from my stash: SMC Super Fine Merino Opera wool, which is now an
obsolete product line. I must have bought it a couple of years’ ago at the Ally
Pally Knitting and Stitching Show. I’d totally forgotten about it and, when I found it squirrelled away, I decided that Aran
with a few winter sparkles might work in the run-up to Christmas. I rather like
how it’s turned out, and there’s a part of me that regrets not having enough left
to make some sort of cardigan that would look cool over a party dress.
Instead I may have to think about a sparkly beanie to co ordinate with the scarf for a dash of après ski chic.
I added some faux fur(ry) pompoms, also resurrected from the depths of my stash, for a
slightly more decadent look, but this scarf would look really lovely with a long-tailed
fringe made from the sparkly wool along both ends.
My scarf measured 137 cm/ 54" in length and was 20 cm/ 8" wide. On the aran pattern this worked out as an average tension of 41 stitches x 30 rows on a 10 cm x 10 cm swatch, and I used about 650 metres or 707 yards of wool, which translates as 4 and a bit 50g balls.
If you’d like to make one for yourself, just read on for the pattern.
