I’ve been saving this one for the holidays – the deep red color is perfectly festive! I used Swans Island Natural Colors in the fingering weight to make the “Aran” pattern from my Reversible Scarves book. This is one of my favorite patterns, as the cables are truly reversible. The scarf took me less time to make than I would have thought. The pattern looks complicated, but is actually very easy to memorize.
I’m not usually a fan of using tone-on-tone yarn in a cable pattern. The Swans Island color variations were so subtle, though, I love the end result.
purchased your book in Sisters, Oregon awhile ago and absolutely LOVE it. Have some Swans Island in my stash which you said would be about 45-48″ in length
What mods could I do to make it narrower? Asymmetrical by leaving off one 8-st cable. Could you help me figure out how many to cast on?
Have a great weekend
I’m so glad you like my book! You made my day – thank you.
You could indeed make the scarf asymmetrical by leaving off one 8-st cable. You’d cast on 42 sts. Looking at the scarf, I wonder how the seed st background would look without the cable there. It might be nice to try using garter there instead (sts 8-10 or 41-43 depending on which cable you remove). It might look more intentional. You’d just need to play with it and see.
If you wanted to keep the scarf symmetrical, you could remove two sts from each of the garter sections on each side of the large center cable. That would only take 4 sts out of the row, but depending on what you’re looking for that might be enough. That would take about 1/2″ off the width, making the scarf roughly 6.75″ wide.
I hope you enjoy knitting “Aran”. It’s one of my very favorites!