Ascot Scarf Lesson 1:

In this lesson, we well focus on some general features of a design. Many of you are aware that I have written lots of knitting calculators. So, you are likely to think that design involves calculating things. This is true, to some extent. However, it is also untrue. Because the real design work happens before you calculate anything! The real design work involves making aesthetic choices. Yes, before calculating, we need to decide what our scarf will look like! We also need to select the general organization for your knitting. Calculations (i.e. “the math”) can wait until later.

Aesthetics: What do we want our scarf to look like.

So, today we’ll discuss the aesthetic of the scarf. Scarves or more generally “neck thingies”, can look like anything. Fortunately, for the sake of discussion, we have constrained the choice a little: We are making an ascot scarf. Because we want this to be a simple project, the stitch patterns are going to be garter stitch and ribbing. Now, let’s look at other features of the scarf.

Geometric features of the ascot scarf:

• The leaves: These are the pointy ends of the scarf. The leaves are knit in garter stitch and need to be just long enough to fit through the button hole and drape nicely.
• The buttonholes. The buttonholes are narrow, knit in ribbbing, and should be just long enough to permit the leaves to pass through.
• The neckwrap. The neck wrap is knit in garter stitch. Other than that, you can go wild on this part. The neck wrap can be just short enough to wrap tightly around your neck, or long enough to wrap several time. It can be narrow or wide. This is entirely up to you.

Given these features, we designers need to ask ourselves:

1. How long should the buttonhole be?
2. How long should the ‘the leaf’ be?
3. How long do we want the neck wrap to be?
4. How wide do we want the neck wrap to be?

Do you think there are “correct” answers to these questions? Well, there are some clearly wrong answers. Some questions have answered based on function: The button hole should be long enough to let the leaf slip through, but short enough to hold it snugly.

However, the length of the leaf and the length of the scarf have a vast range of possible “right” answers.

For adults, I’ve made scarves with neckwraps as short as 15″ and as long as 5 ft. I’ve made them 4″ to 6″ wide. The example shown is my brother-in-law’s scarf. It’s 18″ long and 6″ wide. Knit from chunky yarn, this is perfect to fill in the gap for a man’s dressy overcoat. (This is how David wear it.)

How do you decide the correct answers for your scarf? We’ll discuss these specific choices in lesson 2!

Yarn choice decisions

We know come to the fun part. What yarn should we use?

I know we all want to think of beauty first, but we need to hold off a bit. It’s best to first think of functional features. So, lets go in order:

1. This is worn against the neck. The yarn needs to be soft.
2. Does this scarf need to be durable? Scarves tend to be worn daily in winter; on the other hand, they just drape around the neck. For kids, durability is probably important; adults could use delicate cashmere!
3. Machine washable? Maybe or maybe not. This depends on who is being given the scarf. On the one hand, I don’t like to resort to stereotypes, but you are giving this to your college age nephew who is studying engineering, I would strongly advise the scarf be machine washable. On the other hand, if you are giving it to a 50 year old lady who lunches who enjoys hand laundering her silk lingerie, then hand wash only is fine.
4. How thick should the yarn be? Generally, this is entirely up to you! But because this is a design lesson, I’m going to tell you to pick yarn that knits at 4 stitches or fewer stitches an inch. (The reason is that you want to knit up the project quickly so you can focus on the design part of the lesson.)
5. What do I want the yarn to look like? Do you want fuzzy? Smooth? Novelty? For now, pick whatever you like provided it’s a yarn you feel comfortable knitting. Most often, I see ascot scarves knit in smooth worsted yarns or soft fuzzy yarns and advice that. But if you want to be adventurous, pick something else. But, before selecting, ideally, find out if you can see some of the yarn knit up and decide if you think it looks pretty when knit in garter stitch.

Deciding on general organization for knitting

1. Tip to tip: Cast on, work a leaf, work a button hole, work neck wrap, work a button hole, bind off?
2. Center out: Provisional cast on at center, work1/2 neck wrap, work a buttonhole, work a leaf, bind off. Pick up stitches from provisional cast on, repeat as for first half of scarf.
3. Tip to center: Cast on, knit a leaf, work a buttonhole, knit 1/2 neckwrap. Put stitches on stitch holder. Repeat. Graft two pieces together.

So which one do we pick?

Each method has advantages and disadvantages. For example, the third method is ideal if you want to create the longest possible scarf while using up all your yarn. You can just knit the neck wrap until you only have enough yarn to graft. Graft the two pieces together, and that’s the longest scarf you could have knit! But there is a big disadvantage: Beginners usually don’t know how to graft, plus grafting garter stitch is more difficult than grafting stockinette. Even many advanced knitters avoid grafting- so much so you rarely see grafting in commercial patterns!

Notice that the second method involves “provisional cast on”. This is easy to do, but it’s best to avoid in a beginner pattern. Once again: this is a technique many advanced knitters also avoid.

So, we are left with method 1: working “tip to tip”.

The disadvantage of this method is that you will yarn left over (unlike with method 3) and you must work bot decreases and increases. Since you want both ends to look similar, this reduces the number of choices for increases and decreases. But since we want simple pattern, we are going to organize the knitting this way.

Summary

That’s the end of today’s lesson. We will move on to calculations next. What you need to do for homework is:

1. Select a type of yarn. (Visit your LYS, look on ebay, look through your stash. For now, budget about 100-150 grams which is more than enough for nearly any length scarf. (Short narrow scarves will take much less.) We’ll have a better estimate later when you decide on the length and width, and know your stitch gauge.

In lesson 2, we’ll discuss how to select the length and width of your scarf and we will select the method of increasing and decreasing. So, still no math. The math starts in lesson 3, which will be accessible to subscribers only. You’ll love the lessons, so Click to Subscribe to The Knitting Fiend: Premium.