Cave of Lovers Scarflette
Updated: Sep 15, 2022
Pattern available on Ravelry.
I love this thing. I mean, it’s just so different! And I have gotten SO many compliments on it just in the few days I've been wearing it around since finishing it! <3
Made of mostly post stitches, it’s pretty dense which equals delightfully warm for such a little thing. Actually, it’s longer than I anticipated I could make it with just one skein! It’s snug to wrap around twice, but it’s SO cozy.
Adding the little charms on the points is totally optional, but they add a nice bit of weight as well as being a unique accent. And, of course, the shawl pin is favorite part. Made of bronze, shaped and hammered (now THAT was fun!) by me, wire wrapped by ME - it was a neat little adventure all its own!
I also did some metal stamping for the first time for the discs. Live. Love. Laugh. Forever. It just seemed fitting for this piece, as a nod to the story inspiration from Karen Robinson's Tristan and Isolde Yarn Club.
The Cave of Lovers is a magical sounding place to me. Sheltered amongst the trees, it is a temple to love. A bed of crystal. Floors of green marble. A door of bronze. A perfect circle with rich ornamentation. It sounds amazing. And totally over the top. So I thought I ought to take this little scarflette a bit over the top, too! So I used bronze, crystals, and circular shapes in the accents I created.
Without those, though this scarf is pretty simple, like an endless leaf, each vein branching from the off-center midrib, as if you're looking at the leaf from an angle. Teeth along the edges are made with a modified picot and there are three points - two on one end and one point on the other.
At just over 40 inches, it's the perfect length to wrap around your neck and throw one end over your shoulder or you can wrap it around twice and pin it for a snug fit. Or, of course, you could make it longer to suit your scarf styling preferences! I think it would also be fun in a chunkier yarn as a super scarf!
The yarn itself is a fingering weight MCN made up of 80% Superwash Merino, 10% Cashmere, and 10% Nylon. It was really a delight to crochet with and blocked quite nicely - all those leaning post stitches kind of makes it curly! Cave of Lovers was one of the colorways I received in the Tristan and Isolde Yarn Club from Karen Robinson of Round Table Yarns, but she has lots of other delicious colors to choose from, too. Take a look at all the colors available on Camelot here.
The written pattern includes both written instruction with stitch counts and a color coded chart that illustrates stitch placement for not only the body of the scarf, but the edging as well. There are also a few photos to help get you started on the edging properly.
There are a LOT of post stitches in this piece, yes, both front and back post stitches, but once you get into the rhythm of the pattern, it really doesn't feel like cabling at all because none of the stitches are actually entwined. The picots are probably the fanciest part of this pattern, but I make them a bit differently than you're supposed to and that makes them easier!
Speaking of making things easier, I have to give a great big shout out to my amazing pattern testers, including Erin Malahowski and Amy Greene - my patterns wouldn't be what they are without their help!
The pattern for the Cave of Lovers Scarflette is available for purchase on Ravelry and the yarn I used is called Camelot, which is available from Round Table Yarns here.
Happy crocheting!
