Beautiful Spring Scarf | Purl Soho

There’s a fine line between a fringe that puts a swing in your step and a fringe that makes you feel like a bedraggled alley cat. A fine line maybe, but a world of difference. This fringe is certainly the fabulous kind, the kind that gives you special powers of infectious happiness!

Beautiful Spring Scarf | Purl Soho

The secret to this fringe’s sass is our new Chinese Knotting Cord, a thin nylon cord more traditionally used for hand crafted jewelry. As fringe, it is smooth and tangle-free, nimble and zippy! And using two slightly different electric pinks lends an extraordinary glow, enough to light up the night!

Beautiful Spring Scarf | Purl Soho

The fringe is exciting, but what fills me with deep satisfaction is Jade Sapphire’s new cashmere-linen blend, Sylph. Exquisite cashmere and straight-from-nature linen, together they are pure beauty. Some people remember the best sunsets of their lives, the best tiramisus, the best arias, but for knitters, it’s all about the best yarn, and this one is definitely on my list!

Beautiful Spring Scarf | Purl Soho

Okay, it’s not just the fringe and the yarn, it’s the whole thing together. The contrast of the soft and rustic yarn with the galactic nylon fringe, the sumptuous feeling, the generous size, the serious fun, it all makes the Beautiful Spring Scarf one of my favorite projects ever. And the good news is you don’t have to be an expert knitter to make one. If you can cast on, knit, purl and bind off, you can make your very own Beautiful Spring Scarf! Really! -Whitney

Designed by Purl Soho designer, Whitney Van Nes.

Share your progress and connect with the community by tagging your pics with #PurlSoho, #PurlSohoBusyHands, #PurlSohoBeautifulSpringScarf. We can’t wait to see what you make!

Materials

Beautiful Spring Scarf | Purl Soho

  • 4 skeins of Jade Sapphire’s Sylph, 58% Cashmere and 42% Linen. Each skein is 309 yards/ 50 grams; approximately 1236 yards required. This color is Rustle. (Please Note: Sylph is no longer available. We recommend using 3 skeins of our Linen Quill!)
  • 4 bobbins of Chinese Knotting Cord, 1mm, 100% Nylon: 2 bobbins of Fluorescent Pink and 2 bobbins of Neon Pink. (Note: If you want to use the same color for both ends of fringe, three bobbins will be enough.)

Gauge

7 2/3 stitches = 1 inch in stockinette stitch

Size

14 inches wide x 82 inches long (not including 9-inch fringe at each end)

Pattern

Cast on 107 stitches. We used a basic Long Tail Cast On.

Row 1 (wrong side): Purl.

Row 2 (right side): Knit.

Repeat Rows 1 and 2 until you’ve used all but about a yard and a half of the four skeins (or until the piece measures 82 inches from the cast on edge).

Bind off loosely on a right side row.

Fringe

Cut 36 eighteen-inch pieces of each color of Chinese Knotting Cord. Keep the two colors separated; one color is for one end of the scarf and the other is for the other end.

Starting with either color and either end of the scarf…

Fold one strand in half and grasp it firmly nearly the fold.

Beautiful Spring Scarf | Purl Soho

Starting at the corner, one stitch from the selvedge, insert the crochet hook from the back (purl) side to the front (knit) side.

Beautiful Spring Scarf | Purl Soho

With the hook, grab the Knotting Cord at its fold and pull it through to form a loop.

Beautiful Spring Scarf | Purl Soho

Hook the tails of the cord…

Beautiful Spring Scarf | Purl Soho

…and pull them through the loop. Pull the tails nice and tight. (They should stay snug, but if you ever notice them loosening, just give them a little tug!)

Make the next fringe 3 stitches away from the first.

Beautiful Spring Scarf | Purl Soho

Continue to add a fringe every three stitches all the way to the corner.

Beautiful Spring Scarf | Purl Soho

Using the second color, make the fringe at the other end in exactly the same way.

NOTE: The ends of Chinese Knotting Cord can be sealed with a flame. To put fears of unraveling to rest just give each end a quick flick of the flame! If you go fast, the heat won’t discolor the cord. Longer exposure to the flame will turn the end a bit darker, although not black.