Fall has arrived and I am so happy to be wearing my socks again! My feet (and my life stage) will not allow me to wear socks in the summer and hopefully, one day I will pass through this hotflash mania and be able to wear shirts with sleeves and socks on my feet for a whole day. Layering suits my life stage. Or else I will finally come up with the perfect cool sock….I’ve been working on that pattern for the last 10 years and have yet to come up with a suitable solution! I know some of y’all out there can feel me…anyway..let’s get back on topic, ok?
Speaking of hotflashes, the other thing I can’t do anymore is wear turtlenecks. Ever since I got preggers, I can’t stand things sucking up to my neck. So, scarves and cowls are what keeps my chest and throat warm in the winter. I love the cozy feeling of a soft wool cowl or scarf around my neck…but don’t get me started on acrylic here…..
So, I present to you the dropped stitch cowl or scarf pattern. Now, don’t get me wrong, lots of people out there make dropped stitch items, so dropping stitches to make a more interesting pattern in plain knitting is an age old technique. I’m just giving you an idea of how to do it on a circular knitting machine. This is a starting point. You can do with it as you will, but please be sure to send pictures so I can add them to this blog post, because let’s face it. I would rather look at pictures than read all this writing just to get to the pattern!!!
You may be wondering…why would one go to the trouble of dropping and running all those stitches instead of leaving needles out of the cylinder? It’s entirely possible to make the same scarf by removing needles and cranking a tube…and that could very well be your jam. But here’s why I like the drop stitch. When you drop the stitch, it drops a whole loop of knitting, giving you a wider bar in between stitches. This give a more dramatic effect and a wider scarf after blocking.
And there’s another thing….do you want to take your knitting to the next level? Start by blocking. Makes all the difference in a final product. I don’t mean you have to run out and buy multiple sets of sock blockers! I mean adjust your iron to the wool setting and fill that baby up with water and press your items with lots and lots of steam. Then leave them to dry. Try it. You’ll like it.
Enjoy fall and happy cranking!!
So, here’s the drop stitch scarf that Meghan from the comments section did!! She left the tails so she could identify where the Kitchener stitch is and show us her cowl! Zoom in!! I can’t see it!! Good job Meghan and way to keep at it!!!
Hello from Israel
My name is Marina, a French lady living in Israel for the last 40 years!
I have an Auto Knitter from 1923.
The dropped stitch is new to, its seems like every day there is something to learn.
Thank you, hope to see more of your blog!
Marina Grinberg
Howdy,
I have been thinking about trying a dropped stitch scarf. What if you want a ribbed border and you want to stop the run in a certain place?
Thank you Jamie!!
Quick and easy Holiday gift. Gotta love your sock machine 🧦
Thank you Jamie
I remember a Knitty pattern that called for a) buying a thrift shop sweater, b) disassembling the panels of knitting, c) dropping some stitches, and d) weaving ribbons or a super-chunky yarn into the channels formed by the dropped stitches.
Whelp– looks like my brain conflated two Knitty designs: here is Bob & Weave, on ribbons woven into dropped stitches:
http://knitty.com/ISSUEwinter04/PATTbobweave.html
And here is the FrankenKnits thrift-shop panel dropped stitch shawl: http://knitty.com/ISSUEsummer06/FEATsum06FK.html
So here’s what I wanted to say: it could be fun to weave stuff into the dropped stitch channels.
Or it could be fun to say “I could do that weaving thing some time later if I wanted to,” and then to never do it 🙂 That’s what I do!
Thanks for the pattern!
I have a nice scarf that I’m having trouble stitching together…what am I missing?!! Any tips on stitching end to end to form a tube?
There is a picture of the scarf in a big ring on the pattern. that is the way you have to hold it. You will need to kitchener it from the outside! Good luck!!
Thanks Jamie, I’m good that far – I’ve got the ends lined up straight and am trying to kitchener from the outside. I’m an ok-but-not-perfect kitchener stitcher but I seem to be having trouble as I do the stitch around. Maybe it is because of the dropped stitches; somehow by about 20-25 stitches in my rows are no longer lined up. So I’m worried that if I keep going there are stitches that have not been caught. Any guesses what might be messing me up?
I am trying to figure out how to attach a picture to this reply, but if I can’t get it, go back to the blog post and I will put it there. So, since you knit the tube in a spiral, the join row is going to be one row over. So, I suggest that you cheat (unlike the picture I am trying to show you) to make it line up. It should only be by one stitch. I am going to go down and try this out right now!
So, check out the blog for my findings…my idea worked and I even made a you tube video of how to Kitchener the scarf closed. You can see the video here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_w1sTdvqDKc
You totally ROCK!!!!
That’s going above and beyond. The video is super. Now I have to run off and block that scarf so I can stitch along with your video.
(Happy dance!) Thank you 🙂
I did it!!!
Finally, I got it. After watching your video like 10 times (and cleaning my glasses and getting better lighting – duh) I figured out what I was doing wrong 🙂
In the video when you come to the dropped stitch you say something like ” and here there’s 2 stitches and then across the street there is this 1 long one”. So when I would cross the street back again, I was trying to find another long stitch. Turns out that I was adding an extra stitch from the row below every time I got to the dropped stitch. That would explain why I kept going off track and losing my alignment. It turned out so well, I can’t even tell where I stitched my scarf together now. I’m so excited; it feels like a great accomplishment!! I have a picture, but I don’t know how to post it here.