I know I’ve talked a bit about my undying love for Noro yarn but there is another yarn who also holds a key to my heart. (My heart has many locks and many keys, incidentally.) And that yarn is Malabrigo. Several holidays ago I made a bunch of my favorite people cowls which all used Malabrigo Rasta. It’s safe to say that I’ve been an addict ever since. The colors, the texture, the quality…it’s all good. I have since branched out from just Rasta but my favorite colorway remains the same: Arco Iris. Arco Iris means rainbow and that just so happens to be my favorite color!
A few months ago I was looking around on Ravelry and came across a scarf pattern called Cordate by Tori Gurbisz that uses Malabrigo Rasta. It’s freaking gorgeous and I wanted to immediately figure out how to make it on a loom. Turns out it was pretty darn easy to convert and a whole lot of fun to make.
I grabbed my largest gauge circle loom and did a quick swatch and discovered that my gauge wasn’t quite the same as the pattern, but hey, it’s a scarf! Gauge doesn’t really matter that much! Yay! As you can see you start with a provisional cast on and begin the lace pattern. Lace patterns can look complicated but they are actually very simple to follow. Trust me. If I can do it, you can do it.
My pattern looks a little different than the original partly due to the different gauge but also due to the fact that I was doing one entire row incorrectly. I figured that out about half way into the project and rather than frog it and start over I decided to carry on the mistake. I’m lazy like that.
Here it is after I completed knitting and before blocking. Sorry for the washed out colors but the darn sun was shinning. (the nerve!) This scarf was a pretty fast knit which makes me think it’s a good candidate for Christmas gifts this year.
This is a looooooooong scarf. Blocking it was a pleasure, however, because the lace pattern really opened up.
Once the blocking was complete I added the fringe. I added twice as much as the pattern called for because in the case of fringe I truly believe that more is better.
This is a pattern that I can definitely recommend to loom knitters. The pattern is very easy to follow (You have a choice between a written pattern and a chart. I preferred the chart and only had to remember to cross out the instructions for the wrong side and do the opposite. Everything else stays the same. Very simple.) Due to the difference in my gauge I repeated the pattern a few more times than the pattern called for in order to get the right length but that was really not a big deal.
So bottom line: this pattern is awesome!!!! Make it! You will be so happy you did.
See my Ravelry page about this scarf here.
See the original pattern here.