There’s a lot to be said for gift yarns. When my friend went walking along the knitting shop row in Buenos Aires, Argentina, she bought a lovely skein of hand-dyed, ribbon yarn. It took a long time for me to find something to make out of the precious skein. I wanted a scarf or shawlette that I could knit without worrying about the yardage. 

(image from Ravelry pattern page)

Barbara’s Spinners Shawl begins at the neck and works down. That way I could just keep going until I ran out of yarn. I’m not sure what the contents are of this ribbon yarn but I can tell you it won’t be providing any warmth. The shawlette is going to be completely decorative. 

I have one tip for you regarding knitting with ribbon yarn. As you knit, you put a very subtle twist in your working yarn. When the yarn is round, like most yarns, this isn’t a big deal. But, when a ribbon yarn has a twist in it, the flat ribbon becomes twisted on itself. It gets all kinky. That means that you are going to spend just as much time untwisting the yarn by twisting the ball of yarn in the opposite direction. I found myself knitting a row and then untwisting a long bit of yarn for the next row. 

I know it sounds absolutely tedious but it was a small project and I am absolutely thrilled with the result!