Clash and Contradiction: Buttoned Scarflet Psuedo-Pattern

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I'm up nice and early, got some yoga done and feeling all refreshed. It's 5.30am, yes I know I'm crazy.

Anyway...

I wanted to teach myself how to knit, but all of the "beginner" patterns I could find were either too complicated or for things that I wouldn't use in a million years. I had one skein of beautiful yarn that I bought on sale for one Euro in one of the department stores in town, so my project would have to be quite small, I wouldn't have enough yarn for an entire full sized scarf.

This isn't a knitting pattern, but a guide to making a really easy and cute beginner knitting project.

Being a beginner, I didn't take note of the type of yarn I had and threw out the wrapper. I have no idea what it was at all, but no matter. You can pick out your own yarn, try to choose something that looks quite warm and snuggly. I used US size 8 needles for this one, I've no idea really how to choose the correct needles for the yarn I have. It usually tells you on the wrapper, but like I said, I threw mine out so it was a guess.

Remember, if this is your first project, it doesn't matter too much if you make mistakes. I frogged (ripped out) this twice while making it because I'd somehow managed to be increasing the amount of stitches every row. I started with 10 and had 24 when I realised what I was doing. My ends are also pretty messy and there are a couple of mistakes in the finished product, but it's a learning project so it doesn't really matter too much.

If you don't know how to cast on, do stitches or anything like that there is a good website here -

http://learn-to-knit.com/index.htm
It gives you guides for both left handed and right handed knitting, which was a godsend for me as I'm left handed.

So, you'll want to cast on 10 stitches. I knitted the entire thing in purl stitch. Actually I thought I was doing knit stitch but realised I hadn't when I finished. It doesn't really matter, use this project as a practice for whichever stitch you like.

Before sewing in ends.

Keep measuring it until you've reached the length you want, really you only need it to be long enough to wrap your neck and then a little extra to overlap.

When you've got the required length, cast off and sew in your tails. I used a plastic kids needle to pull the tails into the stitching.

Now, when I'd finished knitting mine, I realised that it wasn't quite as "fluffy" as I'd have liked it to be. So, I filled a sink with very hot water and a little dish soap. I put in my knitting project, swirled it around and agitated it until it was as fluffy as I wanted. This is a way of felting your knitting, but I didn't want it entirely felted so I stopped sooner. Then I put it out to dry using pins to keep it in the shape I wanted it. Depending on the type of yarn you've used and how long you felt it for it may shrink, so make sure it is long enough.

After being "felted"

When it has dried out you can sew on the buttons. Being a beginner I've no idea how to knit button holes, so my buttons are just for display. I'm sure if you know what you're doing you could do button holes. Choose some cute buttons to go with your yarn and sew them onto your little scarf.

Here in Heidelberg there is a lovely little shop that has an entire wall of buttons. Seriously, an entire wall like some kind of button Mecca. I bought quite a few for future projects too.

So now you've sewn on the buttons you are done. Although you can skip the buttons and use a brooch, that will make the next step a little easier. I was intending to do that originally but I couldn't find my brooch.

To wear this scarflet properly you need to use a safety pin to keep it on. Keep the safety pin underneath the scarflet and you can pin it however you want to wear it. If you've made it long enough you can also tie it like a regular scarf except it wont have the usual long tails that get in the way.