Standing Ovation Scarf

Color pooling has been a big hit the last year or so.  After seeing so many projects worked in flats rows, I even tried it out myself but working it in the round.  Well, about 3 week or so, I attended a fiber arts festival with my friend Tracy in my local area.  Yarn drool was everywhere because of all the wonderful yarns we saw.

As I was walking around, I saw a beautiful display of yarns by The Fiber Seed.  You know you have to touch all of them, and I fell in love.  They had several different weights from sock weight to worsted weight yarn.  It was then I saw this beautiful colorful yarn with a solid black part hanging on the wall.  It was quite interesting because I wasn’t sure how it would work up.  Lindsay English is the owner of The Fiber Seed and was there to help answer my questions.  She showed me a scarf in knit of what the yarn could do.  I explained to her that I was a crochet designer.  She mentioned the yarn hadn’t been worked up in crochet….well there ya go.  That’s my challenge right?

Please Favorite or Queue in Ravelry

I bought 2 skeins of the Rainbow in the dark DK weight yarn and started working on it.  I am SO happy to say that I was able to figure out a sequence where the yarn would pool.  Once I showed Lindsay (I thought she was the designer), she told me the original designer of the scarf was Talitha Kuomi.  I didn’t want to publish my version without showing it to Talitha to get her permission.  Talitha loved my version and graciously gave me the okay to release it!  I was SO excited.  Please check out her knitted version called Depth and if you are really grateful, it would be cool for you to tell her thank you on her website.

I will say the yarn is amazing to work with if you’ve never used Sprout from The Fiber Seed.  Plus, if you want to try this technique….it will only work with this yarn!  Are you ready to get started?  Please READ the notes section as it will be vitally important to the success of this project for you!

Supplies:

1. Sprout Speckled #3 DK weight Yarn, 90% Merino, 10% Nylon, , 250 yards, Colorway: Rainbow in the Dark (2 skeins)
2. Hook Size:  G/4.00
3. Tapestry Needle for Weaving in the ends.

Abbreviations:

ch – chain
sl st – slip stitch

Gauge:  26 sl st and 21 rows = 4″

Finished Measurement: 45″ x 4 3/4″

Notes: 

If you want to purchase the yarn, you’ll need to find a local yarn store near you or one that supplies the yarn and ships.  Click HERE for the store locator link.

One thing you have to remember when you start a color pooling project is your tension is everything.  I am going to give you the suggested chain count that it took me to get the look I wanted, but you may have to play around with it to get yours right.

You may start your black chain on a different count and not 8.  It could be that you need 7 chains or 9 chains of black. You’ll have to play around with it to see what you get.  I am simply giving you suggestions and what worked for me.

I was very conscious of my first 2 rows because I wanted to make sure it was going to turn out right. How do you duplicate the jagged look?  Its’ tension control.  When I wanted the color rows to move more in one direction then another, I would ease or tighten up on the tension.  It was really fun to watch it change as I went.  It’s a much more “relaxing” color pooling project for sure.

What I did “control” was not allowing myself to get less than 4 sl sts of the black on either end.  I would be afraid of having to loosen up the tension too much to get it back under control and more to the middle of the project.  So that’s just a suggestion.

Row 1:  Ch 8 (black ch) you should now be at the colored part of the yarn, ch through all the colored yarn (could be anywhere from 12-14 chs), ch 8 black ch, turn.

Row 2:  Sl st in first ch and each rem ch across, turn. (My row had 30 sts, 16 black sl sts, 14 color sl sts)

Repeat Row 2 until you have reached your desired length.  Fasten off.  Weave in the ends.

You can sew the ends together if you want.  In the first photo on the blog post, the scarf is moebius style (meaning I twisted it so that it would lay flat that way).  You can certainly try that out or maybe you’d like it to be completely circular.  It’s up to you.

The sl st is going to allow for lots of stretch which was really fun and worked perfectly with the Sprout yarn as I’ve never done a complete sl st project.  It was quite interesting and my mind is now working on duplicating it in a hat possibly.  Wish me luck!  I’ll keep you posted!

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