Faux Sophie

Scarf by Sophie Digard

I've been enamoured with the knit wear of Parisian designer, Sophie Digard for years. Her crocheted pieces are definitely works of fine art. This description is from the French Needle website: Sophie Digard is a Parisian knitwear designer, and above all, a colorist. She began her enterprise in 1999. Fibers made and dyed to her specifications in France are shipped to her workshop in Madagascar where they are hand crocheted, knitted and embroidered into unique works of art.

This Sophie Digard retails for $350

Because of the intense labor and all of the piecework, these scarves are quite expensive. Click on this link to read a wonderful description of Digard's work.

Wool design inspired by organic elements, by Sophie Digard

Sophie combines wool, silk, linen and other natural materials to create her wearable works of art. The colors that Sophie dyes some of the yarn is exquisite. She often blends two or three colors in a strand for a marled appearance. Usually, her colors are very subtle, but sometimes, like in the organic piece above, she chooses vibrant colors.

One of my knitting friends, Lee, said that she had seen a Sophie Digard designed scarf at a boutique on Montana Avenue in Santa Monica. We immediately googled all of Digard's designs. Lee was amazed at the breadth of Digard's work. She was inspired to go through her stash of yarn and start knitting modular squares to join into a scarf.

Of course, I've admired Sophie's work for a very long time, but being impatient and not inclined to do fine, teensy crochet work, I thought it might be best to find a self-striping yarn in soft colors to make little granny squares and combine into a scarf.  I ran over to Wild Fiber in Santa Monica on my lunch hour and picked up two skeins of Lang Mille Colori Baby Merino to pair with some lovely neutral yarn I purchased at last year's Yarn Crawl at Twist, Yarns of Intrigue in Manhattan Beach. I'm just making small granny squares with a size G hook, throwing in an occasional daisy flower square every so often. It's not quite a Sophie, so I call it my "Faux Sophie."

Ellen's "Faux Sophie"