Elizabeth's Scarf #1 - thick & warm

This is the first of three scarves that I will hopefully get to make for my sister in law, Elizabeth. I was having trouble deciding which yarn to use, so she chose her own and ended up giving me enough yarn for three scarves.

detail of Elizabeth's Scarf #1

Several false starts which then had to be unravelled resulted in this being more time consuming than I had planned. Unravelling this particular kind of acrylic yarn is difficult because the fibre snags often, which slows the process further. I was having trouble determining the width of the scarf, because I only had 200g of this colour. Normally 200g would be plenty for a generously sized scarf, but the ply of this is quite thick, possibly a 10 to 12 ply. This made the stitches thick and the scarf shorter than if an 8 ply had been used. This shiny acrylic has a beautiful sheen and is soft and silky to work with, its a lovely variegated colour that in the end results in a nice thick, soft scarf perfect for the cooler months. This scarf ended up being 8 inches thick and 36 inches long, or 20cm by 140cm.

Elizabeth's Scarf #1 modelled by ... me.

Elizabeth asked the scarf be thick and warm, but we also both thought a shell stitch would be pretty. For this scarf I decided to alternate a shell pattern with thick sections of sc and dc. I began with 3 rows of sc, then 5 rows of shell stitch 2 ch, sk 1, dc, sk 1 (dc 1 ch dc, sk 2) repeat for a total of 7 times, sk 1, dc, dc, turn (next row cont. except (dc 1 ch dc) into ch sp). For the next thick section I did (3 rows of sc, 1 row of dc) repeat for a total of 2 times, then 3 rows of sc. Then I repeated the shell section and the thick section. For the middle part of the scarf I did a long shell section of 22 rows. Then I mirror imaged the first end of the scarf for the other. Finally, I had an extra bit of yarn left at the end, so I did 5 rows of sc instead of 3 like at the beginning. All this with a 7mm hook makes this a very thick scarf just long enough to fold the way Elizabeth likes. I do hope she likes this scarf, it took me several hours to make!