Knitting Rules! (29 page)
Authors: Stephanie Pearl–McPhee
Scarves and Shawls
I'
M A STATISTICAL ANOMALY
in the knitting world. I'm one of only an apparent handful of knitters who didn't learn to knit by cutting their stitching teeth on a scarf. (It was a pot holder. I was four. I didn't have what it takes to get through a scarf.) Perhaps my grandmother intended for me to knit a scarf, but then she realized my attention span was that of a tsetse fly and figured out a way for me to bail. Or, maybe my disdain for scarves as a teaching tool is genetic. For whatever reason, it was years and years before I knit one, and I'm still not convinced that scarves are for beginners.
Scarves are a decent commitment, and I don't understand why we refer to beginning knitters as being in “the scarf stage,” as though they're larval knitters, not yet fully aware or awake. I don't know if anybody has noticed yet, but a lot of these “scarf-stage” knitters are turning out square yardage that would awe a seasoned knitter â and are becoming extraordinarily adept in the process. In addition, many of these knitters are using yarns that are darn tricky. These fun fur, fancy-pants novelty yarns are harder to work with than you think, and though you could conceivably knit a quick and easy scarf using the fuzzy skeins, even an experienced knitter has to admit that it's difficult to knit a freakin' stitch if you can't find it on the needle. I know knitters who've been beaten by the sheer volume and monotony of a scarf, or been reduced to gibbering idiots by a lace pattern so complex that signing up for dental experiments at the local veterinary college would seem like a better hobby.
Ten Reasons to Knit a Scarf
Everybody needs one. If you live in a warm place, a scarf is an accessory; if you live in a cold place (like Canada), it's a necessity â all that stands between you and certain death. (Okay, not certain death. Frostbite maybe; chilliness for sure.)
A friend of mine likes to say that a winter scarf is “caulking.” Wound round your neck it bridges the difficult gap a coat leaves at the top and keeps all your heat from escaping.
No matter how many coats you own, by the time January rolls around, you'll be sick to death of all of them. Owning 20 scarves adds a little color to the endless winter and lets you pretend that you have a different look.
You can skip the gauge swatch with a scarf and have it matter not at all. How could a scarf not fit? (Don't answer that. I'm sure I'll find out.)
Scarves are varied in technical difficulty. You can do one in a plain garter stitch, or make a delicate lace wonder. You could knit nothing but scarves your whole knitting career, never repeat yourself, and learn almost every knitting technique.
Scarves are easy, at least mostly easy. If you're a beginning knitter, you can get a fabulous yarn and let it do all the work.
Just as there's comfort food, there's comfort knitting, and a nice plain scarf out of simple delicious wool, knit back and forth in naïve, mindless rows, is good for those days when anything more complex would make you cry.
A scarf is always a welcome gift. Even if the recipient lives in Hawaii, a scarf made of a wee slip of silk will be gratefully received.
If say, you were going to rob a bank (not that you would, that would be wrong) a scarf could be a vital part of your disguise.
The scarf is the gateway to the shawl. There are only so many scarves you can knit before you feel an urge in the shawl direction.