A Warm Granny Stripe Scarf

Let’s face it… my timing is pretty miserable! I’m about to write a blog post to show you my warm, soft and woolly new scarf when outside we have the most absurd temperatures for February in all times. Where I live, the average temperature for this time of year is about 3°C. Currently, we have about 16°C. Right. It is not going to last long and it’s pretty chilly at night so luckily I can still wear my new scarf.

Finding inspiration

For most of the things that I make, Instagram is a big source of inspiration. I either see a pattern that I like and I make it or the things I see in my feed inspire me to make my own designs. Or I combine those two as I did with this scarf.

You see, I’ve seen a lot of people making a shawl called #rechtedriehoeksjaal, designed by Dutch girl Sarah. You can find her on Instagram as @it.is.a.sarah. Her shawl design is based on the good old granny square. Instead of making a square though, she made triangles which she joined to become a shawl. A simple idea with great impact!

I’ll be honest with you, for a while I hesitated to make it. Why? Because of the ridiculous amount of yarn ends to weave in. Each row is made using a new colour which means two ends per row. And weaving in ends definitely is not a hobby of mine. It’s usually the last thing that I do when finishing a project and more than one project has been lying in a corner with just the ends left to weave in…

At the same time, however, I really needed a kind of no brain, comfort crochet project. Something to keep me busy without requiring too much thinking involved. And this one seemed to be perfect for that occasion. Working a granny stripe pattern can be rather soothing. You’ll find the free pattern on Sarah’s blog, it’s in Dutch only but contains diagrams.

Getting started

My scarf hat to match the dark blue winter coat that I bought in autumn. Now that’s not that difficult! These are the shades that I picked.

I found a few shades of Scheepjes Merino Soft in my stash and I ordered a few extra balls of this squishy yarn. It’s one of my favourite yarns to work with. A hint for Scheepjes peeps in case they read this: please increase the number of available colours!

The pattern is really nice to make. As expected, it doesn’t require a lot of thinking. I started my scarf just before Christmas as a slow project. No hurry finishing this one!

I’m very pleased with my colour combination if I may say so :). And you guys seem to like it as well judging by the likes and comments that you gave me on social media! Thank you for that!

Remember that I hesitated to make this scarf because of all the ends? I decided to weave in the ends immediately after finishing each row. And I’ve been a good girl! There’s a little bowl filled with yarn ends in the middle of making the crochet scarf.

As much as I like the original pattern, I decided to adapt it slightly. I wanted mine to be more of a scarf than a shawl. I prefer a narrower version to wear with a winter coat. A very wide shawl can be a little bit bulky then. It’s a matter of personal preference. And it was very easy to adapt Sarah’s pattern. I simply made my triangles smaller and made more of them instead.

Almost done

Once all triangles we’re joined and the scarf was long enough, it was time to decide on a colour to use for the edging. Dark grey, ochre or ivory?

I decided to use ivory to create a nice contrast to the darker colours that I also used. The bright colour really frames the granny triangles nicely! All that was left to do was to block my scarf. The blocking increased the length a little bit and it made the scarf even softer than it already was! And it works wonders on the stitch definition too!

Time to take it out!

My warm granny stripe scarf is ready to be taken out! We did a little photo shoot during one of the dog walks. A large pile of tree trunks always makes for a pretty backdrop, don’t you think?

Thank you, Sarah, for the lovely pattern, it was a joy to make it!

All details for this scarf (yarn, colours, amounts, adaptations) can be found on my Ravelry project page.