Knitting Rules! (31 page)
Authors: Stephanie Pearl–McPhee
You can substitute any stitch pattern you like into a plain scarf pattern, but each is going to change the finished size and shape of your scarf. Remember that lace tends to spread wider than stockinette, cables pull in more than stockinette, and any pattern you put into a scarf tends to stretch lengthwise as it's pulled by gravity on the wearer. (This last point is actually fairly important; failure to compensate for gravity is the leading cause of painful post-knitting lengthening and excess-scarf-length injuries and dorkiness.) Allow for a scarf to grow a little, or if it's a long, long scarf â a lot.
Different stitch patterns are based on different numbers of stitches, so check how many stitches your pattern is a multiple of, and make the adjustments to your total stitch count. For example: You look in a stitch dictionary and pick a pretty lace pattern that's a repeat of 7. You know you want your scarf about 8 inches wide and you're getting 5 stitches to the inch, so you're going to cast on about 40 stitches for plain knitting. What number near 40 is a multiple of 7? Well, there's 35 or 42.
The pattern I've chosen is based on stockinette (knit one side, purl the other), which is going to curl, so I need a border to make it lie flat. Well, let's add 3 stitches on each side for borders, a total of 6. If I go with 42 stitches, the total to cast on will be: 42 + 6 (for border) = 48.
That's a few more stitches than I wanted, plus it's a lacy pattern, so nope. That's a setup for a one-way ticket to Crazytown. I'll go with the 35, for a total of: 35 + 6 = 41, only one stitch off of my original stitch count.
I could even go down one more multiple of 7, but I think a slightly too wide scarf is better than a slightly too skinny one. I might feel differently if I lived somewhere with less snow.
If Scarf Recipe #1 is like oatmeal, this one is like ⦠well, it's still like oatmeal. It's basically the same scarf but knit side to side instead of end to end. This scarf is a relief for knitters who hate turning at the ends of rows, enjoy the commitment of a row that goes on for a good long time, and think that casting on and off many, many stitches in a single go is a day at the beach.
Ingredients
The yarn of choice and needles long enough to hold all the stitches. It's going to be a lot, so you might want to work back and forth on a circular instead of straights.
Because you're knitting lengthwise, this scarf can make lengthwise stripes. I often think of this one when I'm looking to use up odd balls from my collection. If you change yarns every row or two, you can simply begin and end your new rows on alternate sides, let the ends hang free, and knot them up when you're done to get a simple fringe that gets you out of weaving in the ends. Obviously, if you hate fringe and loathe weaving in ends, this is probably not the project for you. Don't say I didn't warn you.
How to Do It
Decide how long you'd like the scarf to be. Using the math from Scarf Recipe #1, and substituting length for width, figure:
Length of scarf (in inches) Ã number of stitches to the inch = number of stitches to cast on
Cast on the desired number and off you go.
Knit along until the scarf is as wide as you'd like it to be, then cast off.
A Scarf with Lace Edges
I love this scarf because it solved a problem that had been bugging me. Most lace patterns have a “this-end-up” element to them and they don't look the same right-side up as they do upside down. It used to annoy the daylights out of me when I knit a scarf with lace edges from end to end and I admired it and loved it â until somebody put it on. Then, suddenly, one end of the lace would appear upside down on the wearer. (If you're the sort of person who is laughing at me right now for caring about silly things like not having the ends of my scarf match, then move along. We'll make a deal. You won't pick on those of us who need things to be matching in order to sleep at night, and we won't laugh at your upside-down lace.)
Ingredients
Yarn and the needles of your choice.
How to Do It
Choose a lace pattern from your stitch dictionary and work out the number to cast on (allowing a number that accommodates the repeats of the lace pattern), as described in Scarf Recipe #1 (see
page 162
).
Knit the lace pattern for a bit, then switch to garter stitch (or something else that lies flat) until half the yarn is gone or the scarf is half the length you'd like it to be. Put the stitches on a stitch holder or slide them to the back of your circular needle.
Break the yarn. Now, begin with step 1 again to produce a second scarf “half” that's just like the first one.
When you're finished, graft (or sew, if you're a chicken) the two pieces together. Voilà : a scarf that has two matching ends. What a relief.