Faith's Guide to Fancy Scarf Yarns - Part 3 - Ronda

Ronda by Katia

1 Ball

5.5mm Needles

8 Stitches

Ronda by Katia is beautiful! When it's knitted up, it's gorgeously soft and tactile, as well as being lovely and warm. It makes a stunning scarf, but if you cast on 12 stitches instead of 8 and just sew the ends together, you can also make a cosy snood. Ronda knits in a very similar way to Tango by Woolcraft, but has a very pretty frilly edge.

Opening the Ball

Ronda is wound a little differently to the others, so when you open your ball you'll find all these little bits of string:

Don't worry, they are supposed to be there! Katia tie the ball up with these to make sure it stays nice and neat and doesn't tangle on our shelves or in your stash. Simply snip them off with a pair of scissors:

You'll end up with a big, loosely wound loop of yarn. The easiest way I've found to work with it is just to plonk it in a nice big knitting bag with nothing else in it and pull it out from there. Because of how it's wound, it doesn't tend to get tangled, which is always handy.

Casting On

When you look at the yarn itself, you've got a load of gaps along the top edge, and loops along the bottom. It's through alternate gaps at the top that you'll be working.
So, to start with poke your needle through the first hole nearest the edge:

Then bring the needle over and down, miss a hole and poke it through the third hole:

Miss another hole and poke the needle through the 5th hole. Keep going until you have 8 stitches on your needle:

And that's your casting on finished! Couldn't be easier.

Knitting

For the first stitch of each row, knit with the very first hole, this one:

So, slide your right needle in as usual, and thread the hole round onto it:

Knit this stitch as you would with normal knitting. Then, miss a hole. Do this for every stitch after the first of each row, so you are knitting with every other hole.

Your first row will look a bit odd! Don't worry, this is normal:

Once you've done a few rows, this is what you'll end up with:

How pretty is that! It's gorgeously soft and chunky too.

Joining

If you find a join in the yarn, or if you've got two balls and want to mix and match and make a two-tone scarf, you can join Ronda incredibly easily.

Simply lay the first new hole over the last old hole:

And then knit through those two holes as if they were one:

I then knitted on a few rows so I could photograph the join to show just how invisible it is. And I was planning to point out the join so you could all see it. Problem is, I actually couldn't find it at all!! 

It's got to be somewhere about 4 or 5 rows down on that picture, but that just goes to show how invisible it really is!

Casting Off

Casting off with Ronda is a little different, but still lovely and easy to do. First off, begin by knitting two stitches. But unlike the rest of the scarf, knit with every other hole on both the first as well as second of these:

Next, poke your left hand needle into the first stitch to grab hold of it:

Then use your needle to pass the first stitch over the second and off the needles:

Knit the next stitch as normal so you have two stitches on the right handle needle again, then pass the first of these stitches over the second again. 

Keep knitting one, then passing one over until you've passed over the final one and have only one stitch left on your right hand needle:

Then snip the yarn a few holes along:

And thread the entire end through that final stitch and pull it tight:

Knot this off a couple of times, and then hide your knots in the ruffles:

Once you've pulled the ruffles out and evened everything off, the cast off edge will be nicely hidden!

Beautiful! 

Snood Pattern

The Ronda Snood is incredibly easy to make, because it's knitted in exactly the same manner as the Scarf. The only difference is that you cast on 12 stitches. When you've finished, simply sew one end to the other using a normal needle and cotton.

Just look at the cosiness!! How lovely is that?

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Part 1
Part 2
Part 3