Garter Goodness

Thank you to all of you wonderful Close Knitters who came to us for all of your holiday knitting needs.  We appreciate your smiling friendly faces and your business through this knitting season.  

We will continue to be open on Mondays from 10-6 because we love to see you!  We will be closed on Sunday, New Year's Day, and we are skipping our Wednesday night Open Knit Night tonight.  Don't worry, it will be back on January 4.

I have a little free scarf recipe for you all!  I'm calling it a recipe rather than a pattern because it's very open to interpretation and variation, and it will work for pretty much any yarn.

At first glance, it looks like your basic garter stitch scarf, but it's more than that.  Half of the scarf is worked lengthwise, and then you pick up stitches along one edge and knit until you run out of yarn.  I used Rowan Purelife Renew for mine, a yarn produced from recycled fabric, but I think this would look so cool with a self-striping yarn or one with a long color repeat.

My scarf ended up about 60" long and about 6" wide, and I'll explain how to figure it out for any weight yarn.

1. Figure out the gauge of your yarn in stitches per inch (not stitches over 4 inches).  Multiply the gauge of your yarn by 30.  Don't worry about a gauge swatch or anything.  It's a scarf.  Cast on that many stitches with a nice long circular needle.  Knit back and forth (not in the round) for about 6 inches (or however wide you'd like your final scarf to be).

2.  Bind off all but the last stitch.  Do this as loosely as humanly possible, or your scarf will be all pinched on one side.  I like to use the Decrease (or Lace) Bind Off, as described here.  When you get to the last stitch, don't bind it off, but pick up one stitch for each garter ridge along the end of the scarf.

3.  Knit until your scarf it as long as you'd like or until you run out of yarn.  Bind off loosely.

I would love to try this with something that gives an ombre effect like Debbie Bliss Glen, Kauni Effectyarn, or Classic Elite Liberty Wool.  A variegated yarn would add a cool touch, too.  I used 3 balls of the Rowan Renew (about 250 yards), which knit up at 3.5 stitches per inch on a US10.5.  I'm not promising that my yardages below are perfect, but they are just to give you an idea.

Fingering: 7 sts/inch, about 550 yards, cast on 210 stitches.

Sport: 6 sts/inch, about 500 yards, cast on 180 stitches.

DK: 5.5 sts/inch, about 450 yards, cast on 165 stitches.

Worsted: 5 sts/inch, about 350 yards, cast on 150 stitches.

Aran: 4.5 sts/inch, about 300 yards, cast on 135 stitches.

Bulky: 3.5 sts/inch, about 250 yards, cast on 105 stitches.

Let me know if you have any questions.  Cast on for this easy scarf and knit away on New Year's Day.  Happy New Year!

P.S. Want to Ravel it?  Here you go!