Dotty Wrap
One look at our gorgeous Dotty Wrap, designed by Sarah Opie, and it’s clear why an easy yarn-over eyelet is the foundation of lace knitting… Low fuss, high impact, and so very simple to do!
A swath of garter bespeckled with rows of eyelets, Sarah’s pattern quickly settles into a relaxed rhythm, giving you every chance to admire the gorgeous yarn on your needles!
A natural pairing for this subtle pattern, our Sweetgrass is a unique blend of 65% organic cotton and 35% superfine alpaca. It feels wonderful in your hands with a lovely drape, soft touch, and delicate halo.
Sweetgrass’s palette of six colors are all undyed, getting their hues from the alpaca fiber, which, when carded with the warm white cotton, creates a range of gently heathered neutrals.
We used just four skeins of beautiful Buckwheat Beige to make our Dotty Wrap, or you could make a scarf with only two. Squishy garter and breezy eyelets, cool cotton and toasty alpaca… This all-season wrap has it all!
Yarn lovers, if you adore the yarn used in this project, you’ll love exploring all of our other yarn collections! Discover over 45 thoughtfully designed yarns in nearly every natural fiber and in every spectacular color you can imagine. Only available here at Purl Soho’s online yarn store, where every skein is created with care and your creativity in mind!
Designed for Purl Soho by Sarah Opie. After spending most of her adult life in Australia, Sarah recently returned to her other home, Canada. While working on her Master’s Degree in architecture, she felt a pull to combine her talent for design with her love of knitting. She now focuses primarily on her designs for knitting and, recently, weaving, too!
Share your progress and connect with the community by tagging your pics with #PurlSoho, #PurlSohoBusyHands, #PurlSohoDottyWrap, and #PurlSohoSweetgrass. We can’t wait to see what you make!
Materials
- 2 (4) skeins of Purl Soho’s Sweetgrass, 65% organic cotton and 35% superfine alpaca. Each skein this fingering weight yarn is 437 yards/ 100 grams; approximately 805 (1655) total yards required. We used the color Buckwheat Beige.
- US 4 (3.5mm), straight or 24-inch circular needles
GAUGE
25 stitches and 44 rows = 4 inches in stitch pattern
SIZES
Scarf (Wrap)
Finished Dimensions: 9 (18¾) inches wide x 72½ inches long
Sample: We knit the Wrap size.
NOTES
STITCH MULTIPLE
This pattern works over a multiple of 4 + 1 stitches.
PATTERN
Cast on 57 (117) stitches. We used a basic Long Tail Cast On.
Set-Up Rows 1–4: Knit 4 rows even.
Row 1 (right side): *K2, yarn over (yo), knit 2 together (k2tog), repeat from * to last stitch, k1.
Rows 2–8: Knit 7 rows even.
Row 9: K4, *yo, k2tog, k2, repeat from * to last stitch, k1.
Rows 10–16: Knit 7 rows even.
Repeat Rows 1–16 until piece measures about 72½ inches from cast-on row, ending with Row 13.
With wrong side facing you, bind off knitwise.
Weave in ends, and gently wet block.
Learn About Sweetgrass + All Our Beautiful Yarns
Sweetgrass brings true natural beauty to this project! A mix of 65% organic cotton and 35% superfine alpaca, Sweetgrass comes in 6 undyed colors, each one reflecting the color of the alpacas who grew the fiber… Amazing! And when that alpaca fiber is mixed with creamy white cotton, you get a soft and lovely heathered quality that adds depth and fascination to the yarn. A fingering-weight yarn, Sweetgrass is absolutely beautiful for three-season scarves, sweaters, and sweet hats, or double it for super cabin-y blankets. At 437 yards per skein, you’ll go far with just a few skeins!
More Free Knitting Patterns
- Be sure to explore our inspiring collection of (mostly free!) Sweetgrass knitting patterns and cast on!
More Fingering-Weight Yarns
- Shop our entire collection of fingering-weight yarns
- If you want to use a different yarn, be sure to take the time to get the correct gauge. Need help? Check our All About Gauge Tutorial!
More Yarns With Similar Fiber
- Shop cotton yarn (What helps cotton keep its cool? Learn all about this soft, natural fiber in our guide to cotton yarn!)
- Shop alpaca yarn
Looking for more inspiration? Explore all of our free knitting patterns and knitting tutorials, buy one of our many knitting kits and yarn bundles, and shop for beautiful yarn. We have over 35 gorgeous natural fiber yarns in 100’s of magnificent colors, designed to bring integrity, beauty, and joy to your next knitting project and only available at Purl Soho!
Could SIMPLY CAMEL yarn be substituted ?
If so, what would be the adjustments?
Thank you,
Mary
Hi Mary,
Yes, you can absolutely use Simply Camel for this pattern! Since Simply Camel is also a fingering weight yarn, just like Sweetgrass, you likely will not need to make any adjustments. Just be sure to knit up a gauge swatch before beginning so that you can determine the best needle size for you to use!
All the best,
Lili
I think this would make a beautiful double-loop cowl in Simply Camel. I have four skeins, 656 yards. Using the scarf pattern, do you think I would have enough yarn?
Hi Jody,
That’s a great idea! The Scarf pattern requires 805 yards, so you don’t quite have enough to make it the full length, but double-loop cowls are usually shorter than scarf-length anyway! We generally design them so that the full circumference is only about 54 or 55 inches around. If you do that, then you’ll definitely have enough yarn!
All the best,
Lili
Hi Lili,
I just bought 10 skeins of Nigh during the sale! I was wondering if there is an easy way to know how many yards I would likely need to knit the wrap in the slightly heavier weight yarn (it hasn’t even been delivered yet). I don’t really care about gauge per se as I would just cast on about 141 stitches and use a size 6 needle (4 plus 1 multiple here), since that is around what I usually like to cast on for your DK weight yarn in a shawl. I’d love to figure out if there is a way to know how approximately many yards one would need for a DK weight for 1000 yards in fingering, for example. And then how many yards of worsted you’d need to match up to 1000 DK. I wonder if there is some sort of chart out there with those comparisons. I haven’t found one on line. That type of quick math would be very helpful when buying a different weight yarn for a pattern one already has. I realize it would not be okay for a sweater or something where gauge is important and you’d have to knit a swatch and do the math (I’m not good at that but I know it is important), but for shawls/wraps it is way less important and would be a quick easy way to know how much yarn to buy when switching weights on a pattern. Thanks for any insight:)
Hi Jane,
I’m afraid there isn’t a standard formula for figuring out something like that, since every yarn has different qualities which can result in very different yardages! I generally figure out a very rough estimate by taking a look at the yardage of other projects in that yarn, and then making some ratios with the area of the projects–it’s really something that needs to be calculated on a case-by-case basis. I think that 10 skeins of Nigh is definitely enough to make a sufficiently large wrap in this stitch pattern though!
All the best,
Lili
I knit for the out of the cold project in my city, crafters make and donate warm accessories to be distributed to the homeless. I recently made this out of worsted weight yarn, since I have a lot in my stash and we’re in Canada, so heavier is better. My skeins were 150 yards, I used 5 skeins with 6mm needles and a cast on of 81 stitches, which gave me a wrap to use as a blanket scarf of the same width but almost 80″ long. My changes were sufficient for the goal of using up stash yarn and providing much needed warm garments for those in need.
Love the simplicity of this wrap! And I love the look of Spindle. What do you think about doing the Dotty Wrap in Spindle? Would it be too delicate for the “dots” to show up?
Thanks for any advice!
Susan
Hi Susan,
I think that this pattern would look lovely in Spindle! Since it’s so thin, you’ll likely need to change the number of stitches you cast on so that the wrap comes to the same width. To figure out your cast-on number, you will want to first knit a gauge swatch in pattern with Spindle. Once you know how many stitches you are getting per inch, you can multiply that number by the width that you would like and cast on the nearest multiple of 4 + 1 stitches. Then you can follow the pattern as written!
You’re right that the holes created by the yarn overs will be very tiny in Spindle, so if you’re not a fan of that, you could consider holding the yarn double. I’ve done this before, and I love the texture it creates! The gauge would also likely be different though, so I’d recommend figuring out your cast-on number in the same way I described above.
Hope this helps!
All the best,
Lili
Hi! I’m pretty new to knitting. Looking forward ti trying this pattern. When it says set up rows 1- 4. Does that mean that I just knit the first 4 rows and then when it gives the directions for row 1 that is the start of a new set? So in essence rows 1-4 would be a boarder of sorts and then I start the rows with yarn over etc? Thank you so much for your help!
Hi Valerie,
That’s correct! After casting on, you’ll knit the first 4 rows for a little border of garter stitch at the beginning. Then, you’ll knit the next row that’s called “Row 1” and continue from there!
All the best,
Lili
I just bought 3 skeins of linen quill. 2 red poppy and 1 yellow. Could I use them to make this ?
Hi Susie,
Yes! You’re in luck, that sounds like a fairly straightforward substitution! Since you have three skeins, you could even make your version in between the scarf and wrap sizes. Just make sure to cast on a multiple of 4 + 1 stitches. For example, 4 x 21 = 84 + 1 = 85 cast on stitches (which happens to be right about between the scarf and wrap cast on numbers! 😉
Please let let us know if you need any more help and thank you so much for question! It’s going to be beautiful!
Best,
Whitney
Can I use Cotton Pure on a Cone as substitute?
Hi Lindy,
You can absolutely use Cotton Pure for this pattern, but you’ll probably need to adjust the number of stitches you cast on so that the wrap comes to the correct size! To figure out your cast-on number, you will want to first knit a gauge swatch in pattern. Once you know how many stitches you are getting per inch, you can multiply that number by the width that you would like and cast on the nearest multiple of 4 + 1 stitches. Then you can follow the pattern as written!
All the best,
Lili
Could I use quartz for this? I love the hazy effect of this yarn
Hi Karen,
Thank you for writing in! You can definitely use Quartz for this project! If you decide to go with that option, you will need two skeins for the scarf and four skeins for the wrap size! Please let me know if you have any other questions!
I am using lace yarn and want to do more than the 117sts. Does the 4+1 mean I can increase by 5 stitches
Hi Carrie,
Thanks for writing in! The stitch multiple means that the overall stitch count must be a multiple of 4 + 1. That means you can add any multiple of 4 to the original stitch count of the pattern!
All the best,
Lili
Love this pattern for a simple throw. Can you suggest cast on number and also number of skeins?
Hi Susan,
Thanks for writing in! We typically design our throw blankets to measure about 48 by 54 inches–do those dimensions sound like what you’re looking for? If so, then here’s how you would calculate the cast-on number and yardage requirement:
To figure out your new cast-on number, multiply the number of stitches per inch (6.25 stitches, according to the gauge of the pattern) by your desired width and cast on the nearest multiple of 4 + 1 stitches. Then you can follow the pattern as written! For a width of 48 stitches, that would come to 300, which you’d round to 301 stitches.
For the yardage, you’ll want to make a ratio with the original surface area/original yardage and the new surface area to solve for the new yardage! For new dimensions of 48 x 54, you would multiply those together (to get 2,592), multiply that by the original yardage of 1655yd (to get 4,289,760), and divide that by the original surface area (18.75 x 72.5), which results in approximately 3,156 yards. Finally, just divide that number by the number of yards per skein of Sweetgrass (437yd) and round up to the nearest whole number. That comes to 8 skeins in total!
I hope this helps, but please let me know if you had different dimensions in mind, and I can redo the calculations!
All the best,
Lili
Hi – My Dotty Wrap measures 72.5″ in length. But I have one of the four skeins of yarn remaining! I do not have a tight gauge. What the heck did I do?
Hi Stacey,
Hmmmmm, for a pattern like this, reaching the full length early is usually indicative of a loose gauge! Would you mind double checking the gauge of your project to see if that could be it?
All the best,
Lili
Thank you for the follow up. The width measures 18 ¾”
You’re welcome! Could you let me know how many stitches and how many rows you can count within 4 inches? The row gauge is most important to know in this case, since you’re running into an issue with the length of your project, not the width!
All the best,
Lili