I’m a pretty new knitter, and I just finished my first project, an extremely long scarf (it’s long because I couldn’t figure out how to stop :P), and I’m wanting to start on something new.
The thing is, I have no idea what to do when it comes to patterns. I want to make a black scarf with white stripes and an anarchy sign at both ends, like this.
How would I do that? The thing that confuses me the most is the anarchy sign. I don’t understand how to stitch something in a different color. I mean, how do you start it? What happens to the other color of yarn? The video I watched involves keeping both yarns with me all the way through the knitting, but what about that long black space in the middle? Do I have to keep it all that time? If not, what do I do?
You’d probably do better being new to knitting to knit the scarf in the b&w and duplicate stitch the red symbol onto the black. There are numerous sites with duplicate stitch info, instructions. It’s very easy…just a matter of stitching on top of an existing stitch (you need to have done the scarf in stockinette). Best that you map out the design beforehand on knitting graph paper (available online) to ensure the scale is correct. As you know, knitting stitches aren’t actually square, as in traditional graph paper.
Just keep in mind that making something round with little blocks of stitches, depending on how wide the scarf is, may mean the symbol won’t be a perfect circle. That applies whether you use dupe st or not.
Thanks for the link, that makes more sense than the one I found.
I understand what you mean about the circle; my grandmother got me started on needlepoint when I was eight and it always annoyed me my circles weren’t round. I’ll just have to graph it out and hope for the best.
Duplicate stitch is often used to embroider on knitting because it emulates stockinette so well. But there is no reason in the world not to use other embroidery stitches that will give you a rounder circle. Plain old outline stitch comes to mind. Directions here: www.inaminuteago.com/stitchindex
If you want to knit the symbol into the fabric of the scarf, you’ll have to chart it, using knitter’s graph paper, available here: www.sweaterscapes.com
Then you’ll have to learn intarsia, which is not a huge deal. No, you don’t have to carry the red yarn all the way up (or down) the black section. You attach it when you’re about to start the symbol section, detach it when you’ve finished the first symbol, and start it again when you’re about to do the second symbol. There’s a helpful video on this site.
Then again, you could do the whole thing in double knitting, which would give you two super-warm scarves in one: red with black symbols, black with red symbols. But that’s a whole other technique.
Oh, and you might enjoy “Knitting for Anarchists,” by Anna Zilboorg. One of my favorite knitting books.
