Knitting

Patterns, projects and techniques

A Great Scarf You Can Knit in a Day (Really)

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an easy scarf you can knit in a dayI’m not saying I recommend this course of action, but I did recently learn that it is possible to knit a scarf — not even with bulky yarn! — in a day.

These are the things you do when a friend suddenly announces they are moving to Iowa.

I had this pattern I had printed out a long time ago, the Malabrigo Waffles Scarf from Yarn Dreams, which looked squishy and fun and fast to knit.

I used some wool and camel blend from my stash and I knit all. day. long. As much as I could. I cast off right before we headed out to goodbye dinner. I actually made mine a little narrower to speed along the knitting, and I think it came out just fine.

I’m not sure how long mine ended up, but it was at least five feet, and it was squishy and warm and pretty and the perfect way to send love 500-some miles away.

While the moral of the story should be that you shouldn’t try to knit a scarf in a day (at least a worsted weight one), I hope this lets you know you still have plenty of time to do some serious knitting for gifts or otherwise.

I’d love to know what’s on your needles!

[Photo: Yarn Dreams]

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Make Your Knitting Machine Scarves Better

I feel like it’s been a while since I’ve shared any patterns for our circular knitting machine users. I know these devices aren’t for everyone but even though I much prefer knitting by hand, it is kind of fun to crank things out on these machines.

One of the most common early projects for a circular knitting machine is a scarf. Which makes sense, because it’s just one long tube and you can make it as long as you like.

One problem that comes from knitting scarves on the circular knitting machine, though, is that it can be hard to know how to finish the ends of the tube so that it looks like a finished scarf and not a tube of knitting.

If you’re not a knitter or crocheter, the most basic way to finish a circular knitting machine scarf is just by cinching up the ends and maybe adding a pompom to each end to cover up any hole that might still be visible at the end.

But if you have a little knitting or crochet skill or are willing to learn, there are a lot of different options for closing up the ends of a scarf. And this would also be true if you hand knit a tube scarf!

I recently wrote a post over at Our Daily Craft that includes five different ways to close up the ends of a tube scarf:

  • the simple cinching method mentioned above
  • sewing the stitches together
  • three needle bind off
  • grafting
  • crochet bind off

Grafting is my favorite because I feel like it gives the cleanest, closest to a seamless look. If you’re a knitter you may already know how to do it but even if you don’t it’s not that hard to learn.

Do you knit tube scarves by hand or machine? I’d love to know how you like to finish them!