Big merino seed stitch scarf

It took six months to find the perfect light to photograph this scarf. From Belgium to Britain, Spain to Scandinavia - it's already well-travelled, and well-used. But perhaps I should have guessed from the beginning that its photographic home would be found in Sweden.

There is something rather Nordic about how simple yet stylish, and colourfully understated it is.  But I don't really think it's that. It's rather the absolute luminosity of this yarn; those dramatic, cool tones really glow. Just like the sun setting over the deep blue Baltic, the clear pink light glowing on the sand.  Those who were reading this time last year might recall a post-holiday knitting post full of enthusiasm for Scandinavia, and, well - one summer wasn't enough.  We love the landscapes and the way of life, and the cooler summer climes suit us far, far better than sweltering southern Europe. You just need to be prepared for those evenings when yes, the wind drops - and so do the temperatures.

What you need then is a huge, incredibly warm, soft and drapy merino wrap.

I've blogged about this scarf before, here, when I was half-way through - and really, I have nothing to add about the process of knitting it. It was simple and big; a perfect project to cart around on trips to the playground, or weekends away, and then to just plug on with while chatting (or while mindlessly thinking about nothing. Knitting is so great for that too, isn't it?) Towards the end I could hardly squeeze it into my knitting bag - so I made another, bigger one, and thus solved about the only problem of the whole project.

What was quite scary was the blocking.  I had recently read this post by the yarn harlot, who by the way is an extremely talented and hilarious writer as well as a wonderful knitter, and decided that I was going to Do Things Properly. What that post didn't say, though, is that getting an absolutely enormous scarf out of your bathtub and onto a big-enough flat surface, all without stretching it, is virtually impossible. Also, it takes DAYS to dry. Who knew??  In the end it actually went fine, and the scarf is indeed better for it - but it took me about a week to recover from the stress.

But that's all behind me now. As, sadly, is this year's Swedish holiday.  We walked the forests, then the coasts, met real Vikings, baked pie with the local farmer's apples, ate almost all our meals outdoors.

And when night fell, we cosied up by the wood stove with the next knitting project.  Of which more, soon!

Pattern & yarn both from Purl Soho: Worsted Twist Seed Stitch Scarf, and the yarn kit.