Lesson 3: Create a ‘Fill in the Blank’ pattern.

I bet you are aching to calculate, right? But remember I said that calculating is one of the later steps in writing a pattern? The reason is that we need to know which numerical values we need to calculate. That means we first need to write a “fill in the blank” pattern. Here’s are the sections of our “fill in the blank” pattern, along with comments.

The Fill In the Blank Pattern

Ascot Scarf

Materials

Yarn: __M___ meters yarn suitable to achieve stitch gauge.
Stitch gauge: __S4___ stitches over 4″ in garter stitch.
Needles:
1 pair ___ mm needles or as required to achieve stitch gauge.
1 pair ___ mm needles.
2 sock needles with any diameter smaller than the larger needle.
2 rubber bands.
tapestry needle to weave in ends.

Lesson comment: Because you are the designer, you get to pick the yarn, needles and stitch gauge. But you still need to know the gauge to design your pattern. So, you must knit a swatch. If you’ve already chosen your yarn and know your stitch gauge, you can fill the stitch gauge in.

How do you “guess” the stitch gauge? Read the ball band around the yarn! (Garter stitch spread, so your gauge have fewer stitches per inch. But the ball band is great for a first guess.) How do you pick the needle size? For the larger needles, pick the size recommended on the ball band!

Leaf

Cast on 1.
R1 (RS): (kpk) in 1
R2 (WS): k3
R3: k1, dbl incr, k1
R4: k5,
R5: k1, m1left, k1, m1right, k1
R6: k all stitches.
R7: k1, m1left, knit until two stitches remain, end m1right, k1
Repeat rows 6 & 7 until __T-1___ stitches are on needle. Width should be approximately __W___ inches.
On the next row, continue to work garter stitch, but sneak in an increase in the center of the row. (T stitches on needle.)
Knit all rows until work measures __L___ inches measured from the end of the buttonhole.

End leaf.

Lesson comment: You should already know the width you want for your scarf; fill that in. Are you using your leaf as a “swatch”? If so, what you can do is work until the width matches the scarf with you will ultimately want. Count the stitches. That’s close to the number of stitches you need. The reason it’s only close is that when you write the instruction for the buttonhole, you’ll realize you need the number of stitches to be a multiple of 2 but not of 4. That is, this can be 10 stitches, 14 stitches, 16 stitches, 22 stitches, but not 12, 16, 20 or 24 stitches. (If you want to be more flexible, you can rewrite the directions for the ribbing for the button hole.)

Since you can knit without knowing the stitch gauge, I bet you are wondering why you need to know it? It’s to get better estimates of the amount of yarn you need for any particular length of scarf! This data will also help you design other scarves in the future.

Buttonhole

Find two sock needles of any diameter and two rubber bands; one will be used as a stitch holder.

Holding two empty needles in your right hand, *slip 1 stitch onto first needle, slip next stitch onto second needle* repeat from *. Wrap a rubber band around the tips of the needles you slipped the second set of stitches.

Begin right side facing; the free yarn should be on the right hand side of your working needle. Call the side you are viewing the ‘right side’ or the work and mark if necessary. Using smaller (ribbing) needles, begin working 1 x 1 ribbing over __T/2___ stitches.
r1: *k1, p1*, repeat from *
r2, *p1, k1*, repeat from *

Work a total of __RR___ rows. Place all stitches on a ’stitch holder’ sock needle, wrap rubber bands around ends, break yarn

With ‘wrong’ side facing, work a total of ___RR__ rows 1 x 1 ribbing over stitches on stitch holder needle.

Remove rubber bands from the first ’stitch holder sock needle’. Hold both sock needles in your left hand with the tail of the yarn hanging on the left hand edge and the working needle in your right hand. You will alternately slip stitches from the sock needles in your left hand to the working needle in your right hand.

Slip row: *Slip stitch from front sock needle, slip stitch from back sock needle*, repeat until all stitches are on the right hand needle.

Lesson notes: a)Notice this is the single most difficult operation for this scarf. It is not a common thing to do, so it is not easy to describe using standard knitting terminology. I would plan on adding a photograph which I would take while knitting the pattern.
b) Notice that the button hole ribbing requires there be an odd number of stitches for each side of the button hole. This is why we designers need to make the number of stitches in the scarf “T” equal to be a multiple of 4. If you want to adjust this you may, but you will have to rewrite the directions for rows 1 and 2 of ribbing.

Neck wrap

Knit all rows until work measures _N_ inches.
Lesson note: Recall, the previous lesson discussed how to pick the length. You should enter that now.

Buttonhole

Work a second buttonhole.

Leaf

R1: k1, ssk, knit until 3 stitches remain, k2tog, k1
R2: knit all stitches
Repeat rows 1 & 2 until 3 stitches remain.
R1: dbl dec;
Break yarn, pull tail through final stitch, weave in all loose ends.

That’s the Fill in the Blank pattern

We now have a “fill in the blank” pattern. But we need to fill in the blanks. So, for now, record and save a few values for later:

1. The width you chose for your scarf. This will be W=_____ inches.
2. The length you chose for the “neck wrap” part of the scarf. This will be N=_____ inches.
3. For any swatch you knit the number of stitches _____ over a width of ______ inches. (If you used the cast on leaf, just measure the width and record the number of stitches.
4. For any swatch you knit the number of rows _____ over a width of ______ inches. (If you used the cast on leaf, just measure the length from cast on and record the number of rows. To count rows in ribbing, count the number of “ridges” on the one side an multiply by 2.

Lesson 4 will explain how to compute your scarf shaping. This is short. In Lesson 5, I will explain how to estimate yardage and post a calculator that compute directions and estimates yarn requirements for your specific scarf. Those will be available by subscription only.

To subscribe to the blog and access the all of upcoming lesson 4, Click to subscribe To The Knitting Fiend: Premium.