It’s March, and that means it’s time for the third pattern in my year-long pattern collection. The Shawinigan Scarf was inspired by the Shawinigan Building, an Art Deco skyscraper in Montreal. I could tell from a distance that the building was from the right era.
(c) Sandra Cohen-Rose and Colin Rose
It quickly turned into an idea for a double knit scarf. Then I had to dig around a bit to find out a little bit more about the building. The key was knowing that the street name used to be Dorchester. Searching on the address I found that the building used to be referred to as the Shawinigan Building. The Shawinigan Water and Power Company and its affiliates had offices here.
I used two full skeins of fingering weight yarn (Indigodragonfly’s Merino Nylon Sock) to make this and then forced my whole family to drive downtown on a cold day to take photos:
And here it is turned around (because double knitting is reversible) on Francine:
Not sure about double knitting? It’s a fun technique that results in a doubled fabric. As done in this pattern, it requires knowing how to knit and how to purl. The difference between double knitting and ribbing is that you’re working with two colours of yarn and for each pair of stitches (one stitch for each side of the work) you usually knit with one colour and then purl with the other.
You can get the individual Shawinigan Scarf pattern on Ravelry for $5 (USD). 
The Canadian Art Deco Knits e-book is $25 (USD) and will include 12 different patterns by the end of 2015.
