Hip to be Square

While I was visiting Serenity Knits after the Brandon Mably workshop, I picked up a couple of small items. One of them is a luscious skein of Hand Maiden Casbah in the Midnight colour way. It’s 80% merino, 10% cashmere, and 10% nylon. A 115 gram ball has 325 metres on it and would typically knit up at about 26 stitches = 4 inches on 3 mm needles. My gauge is always on the tighter side and is different because of the pattern I’m doing. I thought it would make a great dressy scarf for my hubby. He has a warm winter scarf but it’s kind of ratty because he really only uses it for shovelling and snow blowing. I thought he could use a nicer scarf for dressier occasions. The softness of the merino and cashmere against the skin is heavenly.

I thought the colour way was appropriately masculine and sophisticated. The pattern I’m using is of my own design. I wanted it to look like dimensional blocks. The picture gives you a better idea (that's just a gauge swatch - his scarf will be bigger). It’s all stocking alternating with reverse stocking in an attempt to get the scarf to lie as flat as possible. I could have used garter in places to make it lie flat but garter stitch has a very different gauge and uses more yarn than stocking stitch. That’s me, always thinking practically and frugally.