Good Fences Scarf - a free pattern

I knit this scarf last summer on driving holidays so as to make use of the Colinette ART yarn I'd bought, mid-swoon, the previous September.

I love handpainted and variegated yarns, but it's hard to find a stitch that works well for them.

Scarves themselves are hard, too - knitting them is generally easy enough, but choosing one? Yikes. There are so many patterns out there you're spoiled for choice.

What I like about this one is that it's
reversible
yardage-stretching, thanks to the lace
not too feminine to work for a man, in spite of the lace
and, most importantly - great for variegated yarn.

Yes. Because the stitch count changes partway through, eating up more yarn for a short time and dealing with any colour pooling that might possibly annoy you - and incidentally letting you stretch the scarf out further than otherwise possible, during blocking.

When summer was over and I began to need something to tuck around my neck, I reached for this scarf first. For both me and the man I tested it on, it's big enough to fold in or tie shut around the collar of a coat, but small enough not to be bulky.

That's with the one skein of yarn as written, though - with two, and twice as many pattern repeats before the end, you could make it long enough to hang dramatically and swing a little as you walk.

In fact the only difficulty with this scarf was naming it, until I saw the repeating pattern of chain link and hedges. Good fences, between the good neighbours of reverse pattern repeats.


Download .pdf of Good Fences Scarf