A while ago I finished making a scarf for Phoebe. This was a project to try out a basket weave type of pattern, and, other than some sizing issues, it turned out pretty well. I ended up using some yarn that my mom had given me around Christmas that had a really bright color pattern to it.
I started by casting on 30 stitches, long tail method. Though I should have only done 20 stitches as I'll get to later. The first five rows were done in garter stitch, so knit on rs and purl on ws. After the five rows I did the following pattern:
- Knit *5, Knit *5, Purl*5, Knit *5, Purl*5, Knit*5
- repeat 1 until you have 5 rows
- Knit *5, Purl *5, Knit*5, Purl *5, Knit*5, Knit*5
- repeat 3 until you have 5 rows
- repeat 1 through 4 until scarf is the length you want, then
- 5 rows of stockinette stitch and bind off.
As you can see, it is a repeating pattern of alternating squares of stockinette stitch with the rs and ws switched every five stitches. The pattern is much more evident in the detail view. This was a great project for me to try out something other than garter or stockinette stitch. The garter stitched edges help keep the edges from curling, giving it a nice straight edge with no blocking.
This was also my first design of my own making, and I learned a bit from it. One thing I should have done was make some test swatches to gauge the correct width. The pattern as is makes a really wide scarf. Phoebe is going to have to have it folded in half to wear it, and because I didn't want to make it too long for her, it ended up looking too short (though it is the perfect size for a 5 year old). I would suggest changing the pattern to casting on 24 stitches, and making the repeats be 4 stitches long instead. Though again, this time I'd do a test swatch of the width to make sure that is what I wanted, as that might still be too wide. Maybe a lighter yarn and smaller needles would have been the correct fix for this.