Pattern Details:
Knitted on size 19 needles
Held yarn double through the whole pattern with either 2 super bulky strands (orange & orange or orange & oatmeal or orange & coyote or oatmeal & coyote) or 1 bulky strand and 2 of the lighter weight yarns (i.e. orange with Cascade eco duo & bouton).

Cast on 131 - join to knit in the round
Knitting garter stitch (knit, purl). Occasionally I knitted through for a few rounds to add a little bit of stockinette to the pattern (my sister wanted a scarf with mixed textures) until all the orange is gone.
Knit first 3 ridges all orange before introducing any of the off-colors
Add in a row with a little off color or just knit a whole section of the scarf throughout the pattern in the off-color.

Occasionally adding in the other yarns, knitting with 2 or 3 strands at a time - throwing in a few stockinette pieces every so often.

Knitted until I ran out of orange. It was about 15 rounds.

In the end, the cast on of 131 stitches is very very long, too long for a short person (she’s a little taller) it’ll have to be wrapped 3 times, but it isn’t that wide. I chose 131 originally because that is the advised cast on for the Gaptastic Cowl and I was using that as inspiration. She liked wrapping it 3 times but if I were to do this again I would probably stop about about 90 cast on and knit it wider.

So the reason for this project. Gracie works in the graphic tee’s department of an international clothing brand. Even when we were talking about something else, or going for long training runs and finding mindless reasons to talk about anything and everything to fill the time, she has finished most of our conversations lately with “well, the designers are all saying ‘burnt orange, burnt orange is IT for next fall” with a sweeping hand motion (translation: collect some burnt orange NOW!). Two weeks to Christmas, she asked if I could knit her some burnt orange neckwear. 3 days to Christmas, she emails me all sorts of “on-trend” design pages of shawls, infinity cowls, grunge scraps pieced into a scarf, to inspire the design.

So the message was pretty clear - make up a nubby grungy burnt orange accessory and wrap it up for Christmas! Somehow, I met the deadline. In addition I stayed up on Christmas Eve and created a mini version for her maltese-poodle mix Zeus, so they could have matching scarves on their walks (yes, the puppy wears scarves). This was super fun to design and shop for.

Special thanks to my knitting pal Susan and Erika of River Colors for adding the off-color details to this design and suggesting the fun coyote yarn to add the fringe Gracie was craving.