Have some fun: Get out all those spare balls of yarn, pile them up, and sort them out. The idea is to combine between three and six strands of yarn to make a super-thick yarn that’ll knit up quickly on big needles. If you don’t have enough of a particular shade or texture, swap yarns with a friend or buy a ball or two of anything you fancy. The scarf pictured uses cream and other neutral shades with pale and bright pinks, and the yarns range from smooth and silky DK and Aran to textured mohair and chenille.
ESTIMATED TIME TO COMPLETE
There are only 20 stitches to a row, so if you can do a row in a minute and a half, the total knitting time will be around 4 hours. This does not allow for the time you spend deciding on which yarns and colors to put together.
SIZE
Width: 10 in. (25 cm); length: 53 in. (135 cm) not including tassels.
YOU WILL NEED
• approximately 18 oz. (500 g) of assorted yarns, such as brushed chunky, wool and wool mix, knitting worsted or DK, chenille, mohair, bouclé, and other textured yarns
• pair of size US 17 (12 mm) knitting needles
GAUGE
8 sts and 12 rows to 4 in. (10 cm) over gst using yarns stranded together on US size 17 (12 mm) needles. Change the number of yarns stranded together or the needle size, if necessary, to obtain this gauge.
ABBREVIATIONS
gst = garter stitch; k = knit; st(s) = stitch(es).
NOTES
• Strand 3 or more different-textured yarns together, changing the yarns and colors at random.
SCARF
Cast on 20 sts. Work in gst (every row k) changing colors and textures as desired until scarf measures approx. 53 in. (135 cm). Bind off.
TO FINISH
Weave in ends, if necessary (see Tips). Fringe. You need 7 tassels for each end. For each tassel, cut 8-in. (20-cm) lengths, varying the number of strands according to the yarn thickness so that the tassels are all the same size. Fold the strands in half, slip the loop through the cast-on/bound-off edge, and pull the strands through. Trim ends evenly.
TIPS
• You can use almost any mixture of yarns for your scarf, but unless you know they are all machine-washable, it’s best to hand-wash your scarf.
• If you change one strand of your mix at a time, anywhere along a row, you can knit the ends in as you go; this is stronger, neater, and faster than cutting all the yarns and joining at the beginning of a row.
• If you like, you could add more texture by joining in new yarns with a firm knot, then trimming the ends to 1–1½ in. (3–4cm) and leaving them to stick out decoratively.
• Of course, you could make the scarf longer or shorter, depending on the amount of yarn you have.
• If you’d like a wider or narrower scarf, cast on 4 stitches more or fewer for each 2-in. (5-cm) difference.