Perless Scarf

I knit 'continental' style, which means that perling can be painful.  Pain can teach you to hate things very quickly.  Finding E. Zimmerman's patterns for sweaters and other items that are either worked in the round or don't require perling brought me back to knitting.

But there are times when knitting a scarf in garter stitch can get awfully boring.  Even garter stitch can curl or stretch without a border of some sort, and the seed or moss stitch borders that I considered would still cause enough pain to force me to put the work down after a few rows, and forget to pick it up again.

This weekend I remembered the Idiot Washcloth.  It's a simple pattern to teach children how to knit, increase, and decrease while also making a useful thing.  It's called an Idiot Washcloth because it's extremely difficult to screw it up (though I always do, at least once).  It's a yarn-over increase at the beginning of the row then knit to the end and turn.  You continue that until the piece is as large as you want then you k2Tog, YO, K2Tog decrease at the beginning of the row and knit to the end until you're down to 4 stitches and can cast off.

This makes lovely squares to swab the dishes.  Altering it to make a large rectangle (scarf shape) is just a matter of working an increase on one side and a decrease on the other until the scarf is the length you want and then decreasing both sides.

I've marked the decrease side with a plastic safety pink to make it even more foolproof.  The yarn I'm using is the "Sea" colorway of Deborah Norville Collection Serenity Garden Yarn, a 2/fine yarn made of Dralon Microfiber, and not 'itchy' at all.  So yes, it's a great way to make a scarf with variegated yarn that has a tendency to pool and splot when knit stockinette.  I have 2-3/4 skeins of this colorway and think it may only need 2 skeins.  I'm not doing a Dr. Who here... just watching it while I knit.

Pattern for the I-Scarf is:


1.  Cast on 4 stitches
2.  Slip one, Knit 3 and turn
3.  Slip one, knit 1, yarn over, knit to end
       
Repeat Row 3, the increase row, until the scarf is as wide as you like (6" to 14" is good).

Place a marker on one side near the edge as shown above, to indicate a decrease stitch is needed.

4.  Slip one, knit 2 together, yarn over, knit 2 together, knit to end.

Repeat rows 3 and 4 until the scarf is as long as you wish.  Remove marker and work row 4 until there are 4 stitches left.  Cast off and weave in ends.