Montego Bay

August 2010

Rowan Purelife Revive is a yarn made out of recycled clothes, which is such an intriguing idea, I jumped at the first opportunity to try it. My sister in law's birthday, as it turns out.

Being predominantly composed of silk and cotton, it's a definite summer yarn with a great weight and drape to it. This pale brown colourway is shot through with strands of all sort of unexpected colours - turquoise, black, navy blue and dark red - which made it a joy to knit with.

I love the end result too. When I cast on for this project, inspired by various lovely version on ravelry, I wasn't really feeling it at first, and I wondered if I'd just been seduced by good photography. I'm glad I persevered, though - once it got long enough to wrap around my neck as I knit (I'm not the only one who does that, am I?) I started to realise how pretty it was.

Three skeins gave me a scarf about 5" shorter than the pattern intended (it was written for Handmaiden Fine Yarn Sea Silk), but long enough by my standards. 35 stitches across seemed to make a sensible width. As it came so close to the wire I was very glad I cut the strands to make both sets of tassels from the beginning of the third skein before joining it in and finishing off the scarf. I only had a yard or so left over.

The scarf also rolls in on itself to make a tube, as the pattern itself warns you. There's no point fighting it, and it's by no means a serious issue, but it was nice to be forewarned.

Pattern: Montego Bay by Amy R. Singer from Interweave Knits Summer 2007

Yarn: Rowan Purelife Revive

Amount: 3 skeins

Colourway: 462 Basalt

Needles: 4.00mm

Size: One size

On ravelry: here