Branching Out Fisherman Style

My second Branching Out scarf, this one also done in handspun, laceweight llama. I've dyed the naturally butterscotch colored llama yarn with "Scarlet" dye and it came out this lovely brick red.



In this second picture the camera flash intensified the color too much. The actual color is more like the first picture.



Neither picture is clearly showing the detail of the modified center portion. It turned out really well, solving the problem of the "V" at the usual cast on end of this pattern. In fact, with the lace pattern pulling at either end of the center ribbed portion it makes a lovely curved start to the lace.

I finished both ends of the scarf with a hybrid crocheted cast off. It's sort of like the "crochet bind-off" described on page 84 of "Reader's Digest Knitter's Handbook" by Montse Stanley except that I decided I like the extra stretch that more of a single crochet effect gave. It's still not the "single crochet bind-off" from page 85 of the same book. It's somewhere between the two, my own invention. It gave a nice neat cast off edge with plenty of stretch for blocking the scarf.