Spinster's Scraps Scarf

Sometimes, when you love yarn and knitting and crocheting so much, you get the urge to spin some yarn yourself. Your mother-in-law gives you a drop spindle and some practice wool for Christmas, and you're just so excited to get spinning!

Some of those first balls of yarn are... rough. At least if you had the same sort of start I did. A few go from chunky to lace weight every few inches, some are quite nice, however the guard hairs from the cheap practice wool make you concerned to actually wear the itchy thing. But you also don't want to waste these natural fibers that you spun yourself! They're also such small amounts that you're not sure you could even make a decent dish scrubby out of them.

What are you to do?

If you happen to have a loom, 'art yarn' is super easy to use up! Bold and interesting accent pieces in your latest abstract tapestry! However, I'm sure I'm not the only one who took up spinning with knitting and crochet in mind, and do not (yet) have a loom.

So I designed this scarf, with those lovely loom projects in mind, and sought to create a forgiving pattern for less than forgiving yarns.

WHAT YOU'LL NEED

• 6.0 mm Crochet hook (or other similarly slightly oversized crochet hook)
• Main color (MC) yarn. Ideally something soft, and of a similar fiber to your hand-spun yarn. I chose a non-dyed wool, of a medium weight.
• Your collection of hand-spun practice yarn.
• Alternative Color (AC) yarns 1-?.

As you can see, the hand-spun yarn is all over the place in regard to thickness and quality.

 

DIRECTIONS

1. In MC ch 25
2. Skip first chain, sc across, ch 2 and turn
3. Sc in second stitch from hook, *ch 1, skip stitch below, sc in next stitch. Repeat from * across row, make a sc in last stitch of row. Ch 2, turn. (should have 12 total sc)
4. Sc in second stitch from hook, *ch 1, sk st below, sc in next ch 1 space below. Repeat from * across row. Make a sc in the last stitch of the row. Ch 2, turn. 
5. Repeat step 4 in MC until you have approximately 1.5″ in length (for me it was about 5 total rows). 
6. Switch to your first AC yarn and repeat step 4 to desired length (I chose approximately 1 inch, which, depending on yarn, equated to 2-4 rows of each AC yarn). 
7. Repeat step six for all AC yarns, note the order as well as the number of rows for each yarn if you intend to be symmetrical on the other side. 
8. Switch back to MC yarn, and repeat step 4 to desired length, leaving enough yarn leftover to be symmetrical with your initial rows.
9. Repeat steps 6 and 7 in reverse order of the beginning of the scarf, and finish with MC rows. Bind off and weave in ends.

Your stripes will be one-of-a-kind!