Aria

I've been looking for a yarn to use for a scarf for my god-daughter for a while, with Christmas in mind. She's allergic to all the animal fibres and I knitted her a cotton one with some lovely Interlacements yarn a while ago, but I wanted something softer and more eveningy.

An lys was having a splendid clearout of Rowan yarn and I came across vast supplies of Natural Silk Aran, which is silk, linen and viscose. I'd used it once before and loved it, but hadn't been able to justify buying it again. When I found it at half-price, I scooped up a supply of black to make something for myself and then went back a couple of days later and got a supply of shade 461, which is called Flax and is a silvery pale blue. My god-daughter, being a sensible girl, is very fond of blue.

I swatched a couple of other scarves in the book first: Shag, which I'd already made and wanted to do again, but the yarn was too fine and floppy; and Twisted, for which I found this crisp yarn a bit too unforgiving and thought would be better done in something with a bit of stretch.

On looking through the book again, I came across Aria, which I had mentally allocated to some variegated blue-faced leicester but which I now re-examined. I cast on and whizzed off, and haven't looked back.

This yarn is put up in 50g balls, which only contain 71 yards and I get about nine inches of scarf to one ball of yarn. I'm sure it will stretch in wear. I want to make it long enough to wrap round and round.

As you can see in the second picture, the texture is very floppy and the scarf can be folded in half lengthwise, doubling the frill. I hadn't expected the yarn to be this drapey, and it's perfect.
That's the fifth ball you can see sitting on the top. I usually start to get bored with a scarf some time after I pass the half-way point: I keep holding it up and looking at it, and sighing. I start wondering if it would be all right a little bit shorter. Or quite a lot shorter. But I'm not doing that this time. I think one of the reasons is that I finish a ball of yarn often enough to feel a real sense of progress, and another is the little sense of achievement after each triangle that forms the frill.

I often watch films while I'm knitting and my projects fall into those I can do while reading subtitles, and those which require greater concentration. This one can be done while reading subtitles, laughing and talking, but doesn't get boring.