Reading*Crafting*Baking: Fun With Funky Yarn

I once confused a male coworker by pointing out a necklace and telling him, "It's so gaudy! I love it!"

He was under the impression gaudy was bad. Not always.

I am a fan of funky stuff, particularly accessories. I have a major jewelry fetish. Nothing expensive. But the more unique and fun, the better.

A while back, Linda at Knitter's Dream introduced me to Universal Yarn's Cocoon yarn and I bought a couple of balls of Pumpkin Daze.
Thus began my obsession with novelty yarn.

I made a super warm scarf by knitting two stitches on the yarn between each poof. The colors went perfectly with a green wool coat I had and kept me warm all winter.

This past fall, Linda got in new colors by a different yarn maker. At first I wasn't going to buy any, I had just made a scarf the previous winter. And then I saw these colors.

I had to have them because they're Maleficent's colors. You know, Maleficent. The evil fairy from Disney's Sleeping Beauty?

I've collected all things Maleficent for years. I justified the purchase because I had a black wool coat and these colors went better with that than the Pumpkin Daze yarn. So now each coat has a scarf to match it.

The yarn unravels with about 2 inches of yarn between each poof.

I used size 9 needles and knitted 2 stitches between each poof.

The scarf ended up being 5 inches wide and about 65 inches long.
It is super warm, very soft, and, whenever I wear it, I get plenty of compliments. Yes, complete strangers have approached me and petted these scarves.

As far as I'm concerned, Universal Yarn's Rozetti Yarn is the king of novelty yarns. So far I've used their Cocoon Yarn and, more recently, they're Marina Yarn.

As soon as I heard about this yarn, I was excited to use it. I love frilly things and anything with ruffles. This yarn makes knitting a frilly, ruffled scarf super easy.

While on a trip to visit my grandmother, my mother and I found a wonderful little yarn shop in Corning, New York called Wooly Minded. As usual, the first thing I did was dig into the bargain bin and I found some great deals, including one skein of the Marina yarn in Bronze Age color and it was such a great deal, I couldn't not buy it. I used the One Skein Scarf in Marina pattern to whip up this scarf in two days. Seriously, TWO DAYS.

The yarn looks like a wide knitted ribbon, but as you unravel it, it opens up to a delicate webbing with a wider knitted fabric edge.

The scarf is lightweight, making it perfect for year-round accessorizing and it is surprisingly soft. It is so easy, so much fun, and so cute! It ended up being about 4 inches wide and 66 inches long.