Cut the wool every time you change colour, this will leave you with a little pink tail hanging off after you do a pink section, and you would weave in the ends on the pink section of the knitting, same for the black.
This means you will have to weave in two tails for each stripe - fiddly, boring, and tedious.
When you finish a pink stripe, put down the pink wool. Grab the black wool from the previous stripe which was not cut off, it was left dangling from the start of the pink/end of the black stripe, start knitting with the black for the new stripe. This is easier, but the finished scarf will have a strand of black going vertically up the side of the pink stripes (going along the long edge), and vv. for the black stripes. This is called carrying your wool up the side of the work.
If you choose this option, you can weave the black into the pink stitches on the way up the side, so it will not form a loop that can be pulled away from the knitting, but this will be just as visible, and slightly more messy-looking.
However, I would do something called a Russian join. http://www.geocities.com/mama_bear_007/Russian_Join.html
This means no ends to weave in (except the start and end), no knots, no black bits in the pink bits (ooooh!), I highly recommend it. Don’t be put off if the directions looks a bit confusing, sit yourself down in front of the computer with a sharp needle and practise on 2 strands a foot long each, you’ll get the idea.
Do be sure to place the colour change right where you want the stripes to change.
Well, that’s a third option, but you may be entirely happy to carry up the side.
I always do a plain cast-off even for seed or moss stitch and don’t have any problems that way. For size, can he try it on, or is it a surprise?
Are you asking because you don’t know what’s a good size for his height, or you don’t know what size he prefers?
If it’s a secret present: For his height, I would go ask someone of similar size to put it on to help you decide. For his preference, look in his cupboard for any other scarves he has, and see how wide they are.
Generally for a man, I’d go with 14-18 cm wide, but that’s personal taste. However I do think a narrower scarf is more feminine and most men prefer wider. Considering the scarf already has pink in it, and he’s a big guy, I would do about 16-20 cm wide, but remember this is down to your and his taste.
oh ok, doesn’t sound too bad. I heard that after you finish a stripe, bind-it off then do the next one. either sew them together, or after binding one off then keep kniting onto the bind off.
Sorry, was just editing.
I really don’t recommend casting off and then sewing pieces together. This is often done with blankets made of many small squares, but I have never heard of it done to make a striped scarf like the one you want. If I can be bossy - DON"T do it this way! It’s really MUCH more hassle for no particular reason I can think of.
If you want more instructions on the Russian join, just Google it, sometimes another way of explaining with different photos will be more helpful.
Also - you may know this already, but I’ll mention it since you’re new to knitting and the forum - look at the label on your wool, if you have already bought it. You should find a little note that recommends a certain size of knitting needle. For a scarf like this, you should use that needle size or something close to it - you could go one or two sizes up or down.
If you haven’t bought the wool yet, I’d recommend about at least 6 mm needles (American size 10), and wool whose label recommends approximately the same size needle. If you use wool that is quite thin on small needles, you will have to do a lot more knitting. Larger needles and thick wool knit up faster.
(Using BIG needles and thick wool will go very fast, but they might be a bit awkward for a beginner)
For binding off, you can do it in the seed stitch pattern; k 1, p1, pass the first stitch over, k1, pass the stitch over, p1, pass the stitch over… etc. Or if you’re on the other row, p1, k1 first.
