11-24-10: I am working on a formal pattern for this scarf, with a few improvements including a much neater edge. I hope to make it available on Ravelry within the next month or so.

Mom really liked my Meander scarf, and she wanted one similar to it but in red and black. I wanted to try something a little different, and I started to experiment with offset nested rectangles. I also became attached to the idea of doing double knitting with three colors, periodically swapping one color out and another in. I am really pleased with how it all came together.

If anyone tries this out, I’d love to hear about it.

Pattern Notes

The last two “photos” on this project page are front and back charts for each pattern repeat and a schematic of the color changes along the length of the scarf. The scarf is 17 stitches wide, and the pattern repeats each 18 rows. To start, cast on 17 stitches using the long-tail cast on with both yarns held together. (At the end, bind off with both yarns held together.)

If your three colors are A, B, and C, you cast on with A and B; after the first pattern repeat, you replace A with C; after the second pattern repeat, you replace B with A; after the third pattern repeat, you cycle back to the beginning by replacing C with B. In my scarf, A is red, B is black, and C is beige, and there is a total of 19 pattern repeats so that the scarf begins and ends with red and black.

I used the double knitting technique in which you alternate knit and purl all the way across each row, and you always knit the color in front and purl the color in back. You can use your preferred interlocking double knitting method, or follow your favorite double-knitting tutorial. (The first link uses the double knitting method described above; the second uses a different technique but the same cast on and bind off as this scarf.) At the cast on edge, start with the second row of the pattern chart, since the long-tail cast on creates a duplicate row of stitches that forms the first row.

One of the great things about double knitting is that it is really easy to work in the yarn ends at each color change, because you can hide them in between the front and back stitches, so finishing is easy.

Postscript

Ironically, Mom won’t wear the scarf because she is afraid she’ll forget it somewhere, so she has it hanging in her home office. Oh, and the lamp in the second photo is in Mom’s living room. She’s a very patient scarf model.