Knit a Scarf with a Dragon’s Tail

The Dragon’s Tale scarf from Nim Teasdale is just so much fun I had to share it. It’s a crescent-shaped scarf with lace detailing along one side to look like scales, and the tips of the scarf are made to look like the dragon’s head and tail, respectively. Complete with safety eyes, though of course you could use buttons or even just embroider French knots or x shapes if you’d rather.

The head is shaped with cables, and both the cables and the lace are charted, but the full pattern is also written out if you prefer to work that way. There’s just one increase and one decrease in each row of the border, so it’s a pretty simple introduction to lace knitting if you haven’t tried it before. The edge also has an integrated I-cord border to give it more definition.

The head can be worked flat or in the round if you want to give it a little more realistic of a look.

And if you don’t want to use the head and tail at all, you can just make a pretty scarf with a wave and some dragon scales if you’d rather.

Both the width and the length of the pattern are adjustable, and it calls for DK weight yarn but you could also use worsted if you have some handy.

This pattern was originally released in 2014 and you can find the old pattern with 250 projects to show you what it looks like in all kinds of yarns on Ravelry. (There’s a really great rainbow version in there, for example.)

The new pattern has updated charts and is also available on Ravelry. There’s also a shawl version if you’d rather make it bigger and more reminiscent of dargon wings.

I do love the creativity of knitters and am glad this one was refreshed so it got on my radar this time around!

[Photo: Nim Teasdale]

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I don’t even know what to say about this amazing knitting pattern. The Bestiary Scarf from Monstra & Mirabilia is so full of details it’s a little intimidating to talk about.

It features, as the designer describes it, an “artistic encyclopaedia of Western mythical creatures.”

The pattern includes a dragon, harpy, Medusa, chimaera, centauress, phoneix, kraken, mermaid, sew serpent, cyclops, wyvern, Pegasus, amphiptere and amphibaena. (It’s a good thing there’s a photo of the proejct with everything labelled because I definitely didn’t know the names for everything.) It’s also designed like a landscape, with water and land creatures toward the bottom ends and sky creatures toward the top.

The dragon is at the center and is worked sideways so it will show as upright when you wear it.

The scarf is worked in double knitting, so the colorwork appears in the opposite colors on the other side.

It’s worked in light fingering weight yarn (on size 0 US or 2mm knitting needles) and the colorwork is shown in charts. The pattern also includes some video tutorials and written instructions to help you along. The designer says the pattern is for intermediate knitters, and “advanced beginners may succeed with patience and the help of the video tutorials.”

When I was an advanced beginner this kind of a pattern would have brought me to tears, but if you love a challenge, and a project that you’ll wear and get tons of astonished reactions every time, this is the project for you. And of course if you have a few double knitting projects under your belt and are comfortable reading charts, this project shouldn’t be hard, but that doesn’t mean it’s fast. But lots of great things take time, and that’s never stopped us before, right?

You can get a copy of this pattern from Monstra & Mirabilia on Ravelry.

[Photo: Monstra & Mirabilia ]

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