Hello everybody, this is part 2 out of 6 of my “Hand-knit scarf collection”. If you have missed my first Slytherin inspired scarf, you can find that one here, and it is a great place to start if you don’t have a lot of knitting experience. This scarf is also fairly easy, because it only requires you to knit – no purling involved! It does however require you to make loops, which is why I chose to share this one second, because the loops take some getting used to.

The pattern I use is not invented by me, and I first saw it in a video by Sheruknittingcom. She calls this the cross stitch, but when you knit a large piece of this stitch, the crossed loops pull on the garter knit parts, curving them slightly. This makes them look a bit beachy or like sea shells to me. The loops also make sure that this scarf is airy, but also traps a lot of air to be nice and warm. The loops also make for a very quick way to knit a long scarf 😉

THE CHARACTERISTICS

This scarf is 28 cm wide, 216 cm long and weighs 200 grams

THE SUPPLIES

The yarn I used for this scarf was Royal by Zeeman, 100% acrylic. The yarn comes in balls of 100g, so I used 2 balls. I knitted this with needles size 4 or 5. It could also be useful to use a stitch holder, the one I used is also by Zeeman, but a similar one can be bought HERE

THE PATTERN

To start knitting this pattern, I advise you to watch the video I used to make this scarf. The video, by Sheruknittingcom, can be found HERE. If you prefer to read the pattern afterwards, I will write down the instructions too.

As stated in the video, start by casting on a multiple of 8 + 2 stitches. The two extra stitches are your aid stitches. Each needle therefore starts by slipping the first stitch purlwise, and purling the last stitch. For the pattern, repeat the following 12 rows:

1.-4. Knit all stitches (= garter stitch)

5. Knit all stitches, wrapping the yarn around 5 times

6. Knit all stitches, but not in the order they appear on your needle:

• – cross the first four stitches*
• – cross groups of eight stitches
• – cross the last four stitches

7.-10. Knit all stitches

11. knit all stitches, wrapping the yarn around 5 times

12. knit all stitches, but not in the order they appear on your needle; cross groups of eight stitches

*Crossing stitches is done in the following way:

Unravel the amount of stitches needed (4 or 8), pulling them onto the needle in your dominant hand or onto the stitch holder. Pull the first half of the stitches over the last half of the stitches using the needle in your non-dominant hand. Now place the last half of your stitches in front of that. Make sure the stitches in each half block stay in their original order.

Step 1; unravel the stitches onto the needle in your dominant hand

Step 2; pick up the first half of your stitches

Step 3; pull these stitches over the last half

Step 4; move the last half of your stitches to your non-dominant needle as well

Now your stitches are crossed!

The pictures above show the four steps (top to bottom, left to right), with on the right a detailed picture of the finished cross.

CONCLUSION

This scarf is perfect if you are a beginning knitter who wants to learn a new fun stitch, but is not too experienced in increasing, decreasing, ajour stitches or purling. It can be a bit awkward to have all the loops on your needle, so do not use short needles for this project. Overall I think this is a perfect quick scarf, because the loops add a lot of length and volume to the scarf.