Over the last few months, I’ve mentioned a collaborative project with an indie dyer whose work I really admire. Well, here it is: the Saturnalia Infinity Scarf, in colours by Astral Bath Yarns. Mmmm…red and red.

I’d originally planned for stripes of equal width, but quickly realized that the brightness of Scheherazade would overwhelm the darker Murder Ballad if I left it like that, so the stripe widths are slightly different to balance out the colours.

Photos by Wallace Lewis, modeled by the lovely Chez Knox. I have to thank them both for braving a genuinely cold day — a rare thing down here — to get these shots. I love that Chez picked the perfect shade of lipstick, too.

The details: Saturnalia is knit in the round on the bias, yielding a 7.5”/19cm wide scarf from a 24”/60cm circular needle. The scarf was designed in Spectra, a soft, springy, tightly plied superwash merino fingering weight; the sample used about 385 yds/352m of Murder Ballad (a deep, blood red) and 325 yds/297m of Scheherazade (a bright, clear RED), not including swatching. The doubled fabric and fine, lofty yarn make for a warm, cushy scarf with no visible wrong side. The ends are grafted together using Kitchener stitch, though for those of you who hate grafting with the heat of a thousand suns (and I know a few of you) and would rather live with a regular seam, I’ve included instructions for using a regular cast on/bind off.

Ridgely (the colour genius behind Astral Bath) has put together some beautiful kits for Saturnalia, which will be available in her shop tomorrow (Friday, April 5) at 1pm EDT. There’s the original colour combination, which she has called Death and the Maiden, and seven others for your delectation, four kits in each combo. It’s hard to choose, but I think that of the new combinations, my favourites are:

Calypso and Circe: Classic Misdirection

Rhinoceros & Daguerrotype: Vintage Blackmail

Debutante & Grimoire: Cotillion and the Dark Arts (I don’t even like pink and I love this combination.)

Yarn photos courtesy of Ridgely Schantz/Astral Bath. If you’re on Ravelry, you can see all the combinations starting here.

The kits will also include a good quality print copy of the pattern and a coupon code for a free PDF copy, which you can download and/or add to your Ravelry library. Given all the talk in Astral Bath’s Ravelry group about these, I have a feeling they’ll go quickly. In case you should miss out (or are on some crazy knitting-from-stash thing, like I sort of am), the pattern is on sale at 25% off until Sunday night. No coupon code needed: the discount will be deducted automatically. You can buy the pattern here, with or without a Ravelry membership.