How to make a cable knit scarf

Tired of the usual garter stitch scarves? A cable knit scarf could be a good solution, with a granted wow effect! There are many cable stitches, just combine some of them together, alternating them with spaces worked in Reverse Stocking Stitch to give greater relief to the cables. Once you have decided which cable to knit, and how many stitches to cast on, your scarf will take shape and you can make it as long as you like, repeating the pattern.

How long and wide should a knitted scarf with cables be?

The length of a knitted scarf depends a lot on the style we want to give to the scarf, on our personal taste, and on portability. Generally, the average size is between 175 and 180 cm in lenght and around 20 and 25 cm in width. That’s the perfect size to be wrapped around the neck and not to be too bulky.

What materials to use for a knit scarf?

As with the choice of sizes, the choice of materials also depends greatly on personal taste and the effect you want to achieve. For a medium length and width scarf, which is not too bulky, yet very warm and enveloping, we have chosen to knit with our Alpa Cotton blown yarn, made from alpaca and cotton, in the undyed variant. We used then 5 mm knitting needles, to get an effect that is not too tight and soft enough.

Pattern for a cable knit scarf

In this cable scarf pattern, we combined three different cable stitches, with some Reverse Stocking Stitch in between. Remember that to knit cable stitches you also need a cable needle, or a safety pin to keep the stitches on hold while you knit! We casted on 53 stitches, as follows:

• 8 stitches in Cable Stitch;
• 4 stitches in Reverse Stocking Stitches;
• 3 stitches in Eyelet Mock Cable Stitch;
• 4 stitches in Reverse Stocking Stitches;
• 15 stitch in 3-Strand Cable Stitch;
• 4 stitches in Reverse Stocking Stitches;
• 3 stitches in Eyelet Mock Cable Stitch;
• 4 stitches in Reverse Stocking Stitches;
• 8 stitches in Cable Stitch.

This combination of stitches can be varied according to your needs and taste. This pattern is particularly interesting and perfect for a knit scarf since the cable on both side edges prevents them from rolling up.

How to knit the Cable Stitch

Cable Stitch can cross stitches to the right or to the left. We knitted a 8-stitches cable, but you can vary the number of stitches, according to the width you want to have. The main thing is that the number of stictches must be multilple of 2.

• 1st row: knit 8 stitches.
• 2nd row: purl 8 stitches.
• 3rd row: slip 4 stitches to the cable needle and hold to the back (thus you’ll get a right cable), knit 4 stitches, then knit 4 stitches from the cable needle.
• 4th row: purl 8 stitches.
• 5th row: knit 8 stitches.
• 6th row: purl 8 stitches.
• Repeat from 1st row.

To make a left cable, hold the cable needle to the front, changing the pattern as follows:

• 3rd row: slip 4 stitches to the cable needle and hold to the front (thus you’ll get a left cable), knit 4 stitches, then knit 4 stitches from the cable needle.

How to knit the 3-Strand Cable Stitch

Now that you’ve mastered left and right crossovers, you can combine them together into the 3-Strand Cable. Cast on a multiple of three stitches. We cast on 15 stitches.

• 1st row: knit 15stitches.
• 2nd row: purl 15stitches.
• 3rd row: slip 5 stitches to the cable needle and hold it to the back (cross to the right), knit 5 stitches, then knit 5 stitches from cable needle and the the next 5 stitches.
• 4th row: purl 15stitches.
• 5th row: knit 15stitches.
• 6th row: purl 15stitches.
• 7th row: knit 5 stitches, slip 5 stitches to the cable needle and hold it to the front (cross to the left), knit 5 stitches, then knit 5 stitches from cable needle.
• 8th row: purl 15stitches.

How to knit the Eyelet Mock Cable Stitch

In this kind of cable, you don’t need to cross your stitches, so you don’t need the cable needle. In fact, as already explained in this post, the crossing effect is given by the Pass Over Stitch, and it is much simpler than it might seem!

If you like this idea of a cable knit scarf, try to knit one and post it proudly on Instagram using the hashtag #bettaknit!