Drops of Madness

This pattern is available at Ravelry under this link.

This is a simple drop stitch scarf, worked on the bias, perfect to show off handspun yarn. I got mine as a gift from The Madwoman in the Attic, and since I’m working on my own flavor of mentally interesting issues I found the name to be a given.

Size
Um. Smallish.

Material
- about 250 yards of whatever yarn you’d like, preferably with an interesting texture. Wool is a good idea, since that amount doesn’t give you a lot of scarf, but with wool you can coax out some extra length with a good blocking.
- needles, 6.5 mm/US#10.5

Gauge
Once again, this is one of the glorious times in a knitter’s life when she (or he) doesn’t need to swatch. I even caution you to – you’re gonna need every inch of that yarn and handspun is tricky to unravel.

Directions
CO 3 sts.
Row 1: kfb, k2 (3 sts).
Row 2: kfb, k3 (4 sts).
Row 3: kfb, k4 (5 sts).
Row 4: kfb, k5 (6 sts).
Row 5: kfb, k6 (7) sts).
Row 6: kfb, k7 (8 sts).
Row 7: kfb, (yo, k1), repeat to end.
Row 8: kfb, drop yo’s of needle and knit the knitted sts.

Proceed in this manner until the both sides of your triangle are as long as you want your scarf to be wide. In my case this was when I had 18 sts on my needle. Then you simply switch every other “kfb” for a “k2tog” like this:

Row 9: k2tog, k to end.
Row 10: kfb, k to end.

Keep working in this manner, remembering to maintain the drop stitch pattern, until the scarf is the length you would like or (more likely) you run out of yarn. Then it’s time to switch also the other “kfb” for a “k2tog”, like this:

Row 11: k2tog, k to end.
Row 12: k2tog, k to end.

Keep working like this (don’t forget your yo’s!) until you have a total of three stitches on your needles. Then you simply pull the yarn through the remaining stitches, pull tight and weave in the ends.

Do a good wet blocking to get some extra width and length out of the yarn and you’re good to go.