Sanquhar Scarf

This really long, luxurious scarf is double-knitted for extra comfort, and features all of the traditional Sanquhar knitting patterns that I could find.

Sanquhar is a small town in Dumfriesshire, Scotland, and is famous for a couple of reasons. One: it has the oldest working Post Office in the world, and two: it has given rise to one of the most fascinating knitting traditions that I have ever come across.

The two-colour patterns that evolved in Sanquhar are intricate, geometric, symmetrical, and astonishingly beautiful. Many of the designs are based on a grid of 11x11 stitches, and are known as the “dambrod” (an old word for draughts board) patterns. There are many different examples of dambrod patterns, and they have wonderfully evocative names: the Rose, the Drum, the Glendyne, and the most famous of them all, the Duke. The other style of patterns are all-over patterns known as the Tweed patterns, and take their inspiration very much from the older woven designs from n