Sea Arrows Scarf

When I knit a scarf it has to be for someone who deserves it. I don’t enjoy making scarves. The monotony of the long rectangle is not something I anticipate with pleasure. Once I am done knitting a scarf I inevitably try it on to find I’m only halfway there.

Despite this justifiable disapprobation for knitting scarves, I still have people I love in my life with cold necks. When I need to knit a scarf, I search around for stitch patterns that will be interesting enough for me to knit, will not take forever, won’t curl, and will look at least decent on the reverse.

When planning a scarf, I peruse my stitch dictionaries first. I have a Japanese one called Knitting Patterns Book 300 (ISBN 978-4-529-04172-0) and despite really liking many of the stitches I had never actually used one of them, until the Sea Arrows Scarf. 

Many things drew me to pattern #158 that I chose. The yarn over stitches gradually get farther from their corresponding decreases, which means the pattern gently curves the fabric. There are purl and knit stitches inherently in the pattern, something that guards against curling. There is one knit stitch that travels on the foreground of the fabric and never disappears. I can trace my finger along this stitch all the way through the scarf and I just think that’s nifty.

Knit in the decadent Prism Symphony yarn in the mottled Deep Sea colorway, the pattern looks like arrowheads on the sea floor seen through ocean water at dusk. And I didn't pull my hair out from boredom knitting it. Everybody wins.