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Laura Patterson

for Fiber Dreams 2010

FD-47 Spanish Dancer
WEB EXCLUSIVE

In trying to come up with a name for this design I wracked my brain for things with frilly edges—pretty things, feminine things, trees, leaves, flowers... Eventually I had it. There’s a very special creature that lives in warm, tropical seas, along the coastlines where there is both protection and food. It’s a type of nudibranch, or sea slug, known as a Spanish dancer. It is bright red, has frilly edges, and when it swims it looks like the flouncy skirts of a flamenco dancer.

Scarf is knit from one end to the other. To start, increases are made on the right side every fourth row. When scarf reaches maximum width it’s knit even for a while before the decreases begin. Stitches are then decreased until the original number of stitches remain. The entire scarf is worked in garter stitch except for the leaves. The fluid texture of garter stitch is enhanced when a ball of luxury fingering weight yarn is used.

Pattern stitch is both charted and written out.