With all this snow, I wanted to knit some circular scarves and play with the twists. Going from short to long, skinny to wide – there are many aspects to play with.
The weather around me has been rather unpredictable lately. One moment, it’s a rather warm and sunny day, but the next moment drops us below freezing, and the snow is coming down to blanket the city. Because of this, I find I must always be prepared, especially for the colder days when the wind becomes sharp.
I thought a circular scarf would be the perfect way to keep the cold out. Especially since I’m missing hair on half of my head. But that got me thinking about how to approach this scarf. How big should I make it? What about the length? And should it twist?
Since I had so many questions and ideas, I decided to make two scarves so I could see the difference in the process and in the result. One is short in length, large in width, and twisted, while the other is long in length, short in width, and without a twist.
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There was another ulterior motive for this project, and that was to get rid of some yarn. I had two skeins that I wanted to use to get some more space. It was not successful as more yarn just took its place, but that was part of the drive for this project. For the needles, I decided to use a US 6 circular needle, which is about 4.0 mm or a UK 8.
In hindsight, this does feel like a bit of a mistake. The smaller the needle, the more you have to knit to take up the spaces. It’s important to take into consideration the type of yarn you’re using and the needle size. And this consideration is something I rarely take note of. This does cause some struggle during the project, but I still push through.
Process
Set Up
Setting up the project is basically the most important part. This is where the length and the twist are decided. It might seem strange to set the length and not the width at this stage, but knitting in the round bends a lot of rules.
For the shorter scarf, I decided to cast on about 120 stitches onto a set of US 6 circular needles. For the longer scarf, I ended up casting about 260 stitches. Once all the stitches have been cast onto needles, it’s time to set up the twist.
I prefer doing this step on the floor. It’s easier when working in a large space. A circular scarf with no twist should have the base of the stitches all facing the same direction. The standard for me is to place the base of the stitches inward toward the center. So long as this is a smooth path before closing the circle, the scarf should be flat.
But with a small twist, the scarf will twist. This basically just means breaking up the straight path. The twists done now will reflect in the scarf later. The base of the stitches should travel around the outside of the circle, and not face the opposite direction. You can use one twist or more, but a higher number of twists will cause the scarf to tighten.
Knit Until Whenever
The nice part about scarves is that they don’t need fancy stitchwork to look nice. Staying simple can sometimes have the biggest impact. For my twisted scarf, I decided to do a rib pattern, alternating between a knit stitch and a purl stitch. The yarn I was using took well to this pattern.
For the untwisted scarf, I started to do a rib pattern, but the stitches got lost in the fluff. Then I switched to do a rib of a longer stride (knit 5, then purl 5). I was able to hold this pattern for some time before I got annoyed with it. So, then I decided to switch back to a straight knitting pattern.
Then I started knitting and just kept going and going. The nice part about a circular scarf is that you can really see the width coming together. It allows you to choose the feel of the scarf as you’re knitting instead of something more pre-set. I just wanted to knit until I ran out of yarn.
Reflections
This was a fun project, if not just to see how the scarves became different. I ended up making the twisted scarf a little too short, and the untwisted scarf ended up being a little too long. The short scarf is fun because it just has a natural placement. The long scarf is nice because it can be worn in different ways.
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