Papagena Scarf

This new playful scarf is great to display the lovely colors of yarn with a long color gradient. It's made up of stacked stitches for the fringes and modularly knitted diamonds.

As to the name: When I posted a picture of this scarf progress, somebody felt reminded of the Queen of the Night from Mozart's opera "The Magic Flute". I really liked this association - however, I felt that the scarf looks a bit too ragged to belong to the very elegant and cold figure of the Queen of the Night, but better fitted to the persona of Papagena.

This work by Knitting and so on is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.




Other languages

русский / Russian: Fellow Raveller lutik made a video explaining this pattern (in Russian): It can be found here on YouTube. Спасибо!

Dansk / Danish: A danish version was written by MarianneHo (Ravelry name). It can be found here on strikkeglad.dk or here as a PDF. Mange tak!


Materials

• 3.5 mm knitting needles - I used long circulars
• about 170 grams of fingering weight yarn - I used Noro Taiyo Sock
• a lot of stitch markers
• 1 removable stitch markers to mark RS (called "RS-marker")
• tapestry needle to weave in ends

Special Stitches and Techniques

• SB = slip back the number of sts to the left hand needle
• dec9-1 = k3, sl1, [k2tog, psso, SB1] 3 times
• This is called stacked decrease. There is a YouTube-video from So, I make stuff's YouTube channel that shows how to do stacked decreases.
• Short Rows (t+p): There are several techniques for short rows – and it’s a matter of taste which one you prefer. I’ve recently learned a technique called German short rows: when you turn, bring yarn to the front and pull it back so that a sort of double-stitch is created, then knit back as usual - when you have to knit the double-stitch, be careful to knit it as one stitch (see also https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P6n561SMZXQ); this method has the advantage the no picking up of stitches is necessary. In the pattern, this stitch will be called t+p (turn and pull).
• Knitted Cast-On: http://youtu.be/IzVy8fRfOw0
• Stretchy Bind-Off: http://youtu.be/cGHItYwr1us

General Construction

The schematic below shows the general construction of the scarf. It starts with a module at the tip and then grows by layers. Each row starts with an increasing module (called type Inc-B) and ends with another (slightly different) increasing module (called type Inc-A). Inbetween these increasing modules, there are normal basic modules (called type Basic) - starting from the second layer after knitting the tip. Since the layers are knitted in different directions, the RS and WS will switch when a layer changes.

General Construction

Here's how a basic module is knitted:
Row 1 (RS): k25, t+p
Row 2 (WS): k24, t+p
Row 3 (RS): k22, t+p
Row 4 (WS): k20, t+p
Row 5 (RS): k18, t+p
Row 6 (WS): k16, t+p
Row 7 (RS): k14, t+p
Row 8 (WS): k12, t+p
Row 9 (RS): k10, t+p
Row 10 (WS): k8, t+p
Row 11 (RS): k6, t+p
Row 12 (WS): k5, t+p
Row 13 (RS): k6, t+p
Row 14 (WS): k8, t+p
Row 15 (RS): k10, t+p
Row 16 (WS): k12, t+p
Row 17 (RS): k14, t+p
Row 18 (WS): k16, t+p
Row 19 (RS): k18, t+p
Row 20 (WS): k20, t+p
Row 21 (RS): k22, t+p
Row 22 (WS): k24, t+p
Row 23 (RS): k24 ... then go on knitting the next module without turning

Depending on where the module is placed, it may be changed a bit as explained in the instructions.

How to knit a basic module

Instructions

Knitting the tip of the scarf

CO88 (use any CO method you like)
Row A: k all
Row B: k1, * dec9-1, k2 repeat from * 7 times (or until there are only 10 sts left), dec9-1, k1
Row C: k12 place marker k12
Then knit R2 to R22 of the basic module and place the removable marker on the RS when it is possible to attach it.


Layer 1

Inc-B Type Module
Place marker at the end of the row and CO44 sts (with knitted CO)
Row A: k43, ktbl, slip marker, ktbl, k11, t+p
Row B: k11, slip marker,  k1, * dec9-1, k2 repeat from * 3 times (or until there are only 10 sts left), dec9-1, k1

Row C: sl1, k24 t+p
Then knit R2 to R21 of the basic module

Row 22: sl1, k24, t+p
Row 23: sl1, k23

Move the RS-marker to the other side of your knitting

Inc-A Type Module
Knit 12 sts, place marker at the end of the row and CO44 sts (with knitted CO)
Row A: k43, ktbl, slip marker, ktbl, k10, t+p
Row B: k11, slip marker,  k1, * dec9-1, k2 repeat from * 3 times (or until there are only 10 sts left), dec9-1, k1
Then knit R1 to R22 of the basic module (don't turn)

The photos on the right show how the piece looks while knitting Rows A and B of an Inc-A type module.


Layer 2 and all subsequent layers

Knit an Inc-B type module
Knit Basic Module(s) until there are only 12 sts left
Move the stitch markers to the other side of the piece
Knit an Inc-A type module


The last layer

Knit an Inc-B type module up to and including row 22.
Row 23: BO24

Knit rows 1 to 22 of a normal module
Row 23: BO24

Knit an Inc-A type module up to and including row 22
Row 23: BO24

Weave in ends and block it.

This blogpost was featured at Oombawka Design's Link and Share Wednesday No. 147, on the Link your Stuff #59 Week 24 Link Party at Lunamon Design and on the Knitting Love Monthly Link Party. Thank you!