Herringbone Rectangular Scarf

Herringbone Rectangular Scarf Pattern

Like the Herringbone parallelogram Scarf the Herrinbone Rectangular Scarf is written for fingering (sport, dk, worsted) weight yarns as if they were sizes and it is worked flat on the bias.

Unlike the Herrinbone Parallelogram Scarf, this scarf has squared off ends. It starts and ends with a triangle and has a parallelogram in the middle. Since the Rib and Welt Diagonals pattern naturally distorts the fabric, there is a strange increase/decrease ratio in the triangles. It was important to me that the increases flow through the rest of the fabric neatly, so there is almost a different increase method used on every row.

If this is too fiddly, I recommend the Herringbone Parallelogram Scarf.

Skills

M1 right leaning
M1 left leaning
M1 purlwise right leaning
M1 purlwise left leaning
k2tog
SSK
k3tog
(p1,k1) in one stitch
p2tog
P2tog-tbl

Yardages for Popular Yarns

2.5 skeins of Softee Baby Solids and Maris
4 skeins of Swish
2.5 skeins of Koigu Painters Palette Premium Merino
1 skein of Noro Kureyon Sock
1.5 skeins of Smooshy by Dream in Color
1 skein of Trekking XXL
3.5 skeins of Debbie Bliss Baby Cashmirino
2 skeins of Cascade 220
1.5 skeins of Simply Soft by Caron
4 skeins of Wool of the Andes
2 skeins of Classic Wool Patons
4 skeins of Swish
2 skeins of Classy by Dream in Color
2.5 skeins of Wool Ease Solids and Heathers Lion Brand
2 skeins of Berroco Comfort Solids and Heathers

Sometimes it takes me a while to latch onto a good idea. I was reluctant to dive into the squared off ends, but Susan Ashcroft kept urging me to do it. In fact, I was so reluctant that I wrote a blog post about how to make a blunter parallelogram scarf (which would be almost a rectangle.) When she wrote her Herringbone Boomerang Scarf she reminded me that a rectangle would be nice.

Ahumm.

Sometimes it takes me a long time to listen. But now I’m so glad I did! Because now that I can actually square off the ends of a bias herrinbone stitch – I can make more stuff with it.

I tried at first to make the scarf as I described, but after one skein, the almost a rectangle angle just bothered me. It was NOT going to block out. This would have been simpler if I hadn’t already sent the first draft of the pattern to the tech editor. Yeah, yeah, I know. I was trying to avoid the knit it first and forget what you did problem.

There is nothing like a one skein piece of mistaken knitting to make a gauge swatch – it’s not going to be so small that it is distorted. I set my huge quilting ruler with built in square on top of the scarf, and counted the stitches across the bias to see what increase/decrease rate I needed to get that end square. Then I frogged the swatch.

So, with a little more than the usual trouble, hooray! Another pattern launched. And Andrew and Shannon Guest, my brother-in-law and his wife did a beautiful job with the modeling and photography.