Fishtail lace and cables scarf

I found this pattern written in a notebook – it’s for a scarf that I made ages ago. Seeing as it was about the only thing that I wrote in the notebook, I thought that I’d put it here instead.

The pattern for the scarf was  inspired by old guernseys from the north-east of England, the intricately knitted sweaters that were traditionally made in fishing villages along the coast. Each village had its own distinctive knitting patterns: the small cables and moss stitch bands are characteristic of Robin Hood’s Bay in Yorkshire. As far as I know, the fishtail lace pattern is not traditional in guernseys… I guess that the holes in it would not make for a warm and water-repellent sweater to wear at sea…

I knitted the scarf in Rowan Classic Cashsoft Aran with a tension of 35 stitches to 21.5cm. It’s 41 stitches across: 2 sts of double chain edge, 5 moss stitich, 2 purl, 4 cable, 2 purl, 11 lace panel, 2 purl, 4 cable, 2 purl, 5 moss stitich, 2 sts of double chain edge.

Double chain edge

Right side: sl1 knitwise, P1… knit rest of row… P1, sl1 knitwise

Wrong side: P2… knit rest of row… P2

Cables

The cables are worked in opposite directions so that they’re symmetrical (for some reason this seemed very important at the time). On the scarf, the row with the cable stiches (row 3) corresponds to rows 3 and 7 of the fishtail lace pattern.

Row 1: K4

Row 2: P4

Row 3: C4B (or C4F)

Row 4: P4

Fishtail lace panel

8 rows worked over 11 stitches

Row 1 (right side): K1, yf, K3, sl1, K2tog, psso, K3, yf, K1

Row 2: P11

Row 3: K2, yf, K2, sl1, K2tog, psso, K2, yf, K2

Row 4: P11

Row 5: K3, yf, K1, sl1, K2tog, psso, K1, yf, K3

Row 6: P11

Row 7: K4, yf, sl1, K2tog, psso, yf, K4

Row 8: P11