Weird

I just knit the weirdest scarf that I have ever knit.

The yarn I had was two hard balls of Berroco Boho, a self-striping tape yarn in nylon, cotton and  rayon, now discontinued. One day, I found  the pattern: it was on a little piece of paper handed out to the knitters on one of the Unique One knitting nights by one of the knitters. She didn't remember where it was from, but she gave all of us a copy when we asked her about the weird scarves she was making.

The scarf she was knitting was knit in a tube on double pointed needles, all knit in stockinette stitch. It looked wider and shorter than I thought it should be -- until she got to the last row. That is where the magic happened. She dropped every other stitch, knit a round, and bound off! Then she proceeded to pull and push and tweak the stitches until every stitch was dropped down to the end, and the scarf became the right length and looked wonderful. Amazing!

I had forgotten about it until rooting around in my patterns one day, I found that slip of paper, and I thought it might be nice for a summer scarf in Boho which I was trying to find something to do with (thus the rooting around.)

Being a sensible ex-yarn shop owner, I didn't want to put a pattern on my blog that had a copyright, so I tried to find if it was on the internet somewhere, but I couldn't find it anywhere. There are lots of dropped stitch patterns on Ravelry, but none was the same as this one.

Have fun! Stay weird!

Download Drop Stitch Scarf.pdf (127.2K)

Drop Stitch Scarf

Materials: 200 yards worsted weight yarn; size 8 double pointed needles, OR circular needles of your choice to knit with two circulars or Magic Loop

Gauge isn’t important for this project.

Size: About 4" by 6', but mine was knit on a particularly slick nylon blend. If you use wool, it'll be a bit wider and probably a foot shorter.

Directions:

Cast on 24 stitches, 8 stitches per 3 needles.

Row 1: Knit.

Row 2: Increase 1 in every stitch. (48 stitches, 16 sts per needle)

Continue to knit in the round until scarf measures 17”-20” or however long you want (I knit to about 25”). It will be about 2-3 times longer than this when you finish.

Fun row: *Knit 1, then drop 1 stitch* around. (Back to 24 stitches, 8 stitches per 3 needles).

Knit 1 row. Bind off all sts.

Pull the scarf until all the dropped stitches come to the opposite end. Add fringe if you want.

Fun to do! Better not to use knobby or fuzzy yarn as it makes it harder to pull the dropped stitches out.