Wednesday, August 11, 2010

Superbowl Scarf Pattern

I guess there could be some people out there who don't know it, but the 2012 Superbowl will be hosted by the City of Indianapolis.  Great for the city - we got a brand new, gorgeous airport out of the deal.  We might even get some improved public transportation.  There's talk that the game will be carbon neutral.  What's this got to do with knitting?  Well, let me tell you. 

The host committee organizers thought that one way to involve more people in the preparation for the event would be to enlist an army of volunteers to hand knit scarves for each of the 8000 volunteers working the Superbowl.  That's right, 8000 scarves need to be knit by Feb 2012.  All the scarfs have to be knit out of the same shade of blue and white (our Colts colors), and be at least 6 inches wide and 6 feet long. 

I picked up the yarn when I first heard about this project back in March.  I first thought I would use an intarsia technique to make vertical stripes - but this turned out to be way too much effort with all the different ends.  So back to the drawing board.  I wanted a two-color technique, but didn't want to deal with stranding, plus the floats on the wrong side wouldn't look so good.  I thought about double knitting, but didn't have enough yarn and thought the double thickness might just be too thick.  Then I remembered all the great mosaic patterns in Barbara Walker's stitch treasuries.   I used a simple slip stitch pattern based on the stitch patterns contained in Treasury 1.

Here's the scarf - that I've named "Hash Marks"  - to me it looks like the lines on the football field.  And it has my DH's name in it, which I'm hoping will console him when he learns that no, we don't get free tickets to the game in exchange for knitting the scarf.  This version uses Cascade 220.
The pattern is really just a 4 row repeat.  Two rows are knit with one color, and two rows are knit with the other color.  You only knit with one color at a time.  The "stripes" are made by slipping certain stitches purlwise from the left to the right needle without knitting them.  The same stitches are slipped on both of the rows, which carries the color up onto the next row without having to use both colors in one row.  Try it - it is easy and goes really quickly.  Given my preference of the knit stitch over the purl, there is only one row of purling.  Actually, I think you could do the whole thing in knit and it would look pretty good.

Another benefit is that gauge doesn't really matter - and you can even use two different yarns of different weights.  This version uses Knit Picks Wool of the Andes (black) and some of my Mom's homespun yarn, which is thick and thin, but overall leaning towards a bulky weight. 

Here - I opted to cast on less stitches for a narrower scarf, and went up two needles sizes (to US 9) to give it a little more drape. 

A complete pdf of the pattern is linked over on the right in the complimentary patterns section.  It's a fun pattern that is easy to memorize, so it's portable. 

If you knit one, consider posting a picture over on Ravelry (http://www.ravelry.com/) linked to this pattern.  If you have any questions, or comments, feel free to contact me.

11 comments:

  1. This would make a great dishcloth pattern!

    Janey
    janeyknitting AT yahoo DOT ca
    (Change caps to symbols and lose the spaces.)

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  2. I like the hash marks scarf. Thanks for posting it. That's really nice of you. I'm going to make it. A BIG THANKS. Eileen

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  3. Am going to try this, looks amazing and simple!!

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  4. I'd love to post this pattern on two of my blogs on Squidoo. One is "knitting with free on-line patterns" and the other is "Indianapolis my city"

    I would put the picture of the SuperBowl scarf on the blog, with a link to this blog right here. Won't do it till I hear from you.

    judycockrum@gmail.com
    www.3knittingsisters.com
    www.squidoo.com/indianapolis-my-city
    www.squidoo.com/knitting-with-free-on-line-patterns

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  5. Thanks for sharing beautiful designs scarfs now i will try this one.

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  6. Thanks for your complimentary pattern. I used it for a cowl for my daughter.

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    Replies
    1. Your cowl version is beautiful. Love your blog as well!

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