Knitting for Fun: Chain Link Scarf for Beginners

1. Welcome!: Knitting is one of those skills that seems really intimidating at first. But once you learn the basic steps, you'll find it relaxing and infinitely rewarding. Hi, my name is Amy Plant, and I'm a multi passionate creative specializing in art design and textiles. Most of the creative skills I practice are for my work, but everybody needs a hobby. And for me, knitting is it. I don't try to make money from my knitting project, so for me, there's no pressure to be fast or perfect, and you'll see that mindset reflected in this class. I use knitting as a way to relax in the evening or as a way to keep my hands occupied instead of scrolling on my phone. The best thing about knitting is that it's highly portable, so you can take your project with you and knit whenever and wherever the mood strikes you. In this beginner course, I'll show you how to make a unique chain length scarf using basic techniques. And in the process, you'll learn essential beginner knitting skills such as how to cast on and cast off the knit stitch, the pearl stitch, the stock knit stitch, how to join edges, and how to solve problems such as dropping a stitch. By the end of the class, you'll have both a fabulous scarf and all the knowledge you'll need to begin your knitting adventure. So grab a ball of yarn and a couple of knitting needles and come knit with me. 2. Class Project: Class project. The project for this class is a sculptural chain link scarf. Although it may look complex, this piece is actually made of basic components that you can achieve with some beginner knitting skills, which I'll show you step by step. There's a lot of flexibility with this project. You can make the scarf as long as you want with thin or chunky links, in whichever color or texture you choose. The final look of your scarf will largely depend on the size of your knitting needles and the type of yarn you use. I'll go over this in more detail in the next lesson. Accompanying this class is a downloadable PDF that includes a list of supplies you'll need to complete the project, written instructions for finding your knitting gauge and more. You can find and download this guide in the resources section of the course. In the project lessons, I'll be giving you specific numbers in terms of stitches and rows, but know that you can absolutely change these up if you want to. Each link of the chain starts as a rectangle and you're free to increase the width or length of your rectangle to change the look of your scarf. I'll get more into this in a future lesson. When you've completed your project, be sure to take a photo and post it in the project gallery. To inspire other students, let us know what sides, knitting needles you used, the fiber and weight of your yarn, and any other details you think we should know. Next up, we'll go over the tools and materials you'll need to begin your knitting adventure. 3. Tools + Materials: Tools and materials within a knitting project. The two things that will have the most impact on the final look of your piece will be the size of your knitting needles and the type of yarn you choose. For this course, I specifically chose a project that has a lot of flexibility with knitting needle size and yarn type, so you can adapt it to your style and what materials you already have on hand. Let's start by discussing knitting needles. Knitting needles come in a range of sizes and materials. The needles I'll be using for this project are straight needles from a brand called R Knitters. They are 8 millimeters in size and are made of beachwood. Let's look a little closer at each characteristic of these needles, starting with their type. Knitting needles can be either straight or round. Straight needles, such as these are pointed at one end and blend at the other to prevent your stitches from sliding off the other end as you work. Some needles are double ended, which means both ends are pointy and you can easily slip your stitches on and off. As a beginner, it's easier to use traditional straight needles with the pointed end on just one side. Another type is called a round knitting needle and is used for knitting continuously in a tubular shape without having to flip your knitting around or join seams. This needle is ideal for knitting hats and infinity scarves. Now let's talk about needle size. It can be confusing comparing needle sizes sometimes as number sizing can vary in different countries and won't necessarily be the same from brand to brand. Your best bet is to go by millimeter measurement. The needles I'll be demonstrating with are 8 millimeters. This size is on the larger side. I recommend going to a store and holding them in your hand to see if you're comfortable with the feel of them. If you prefer thinner needles, you can use them for this project. Just be aware that you'll need more stitches and rows to achieve the chain link size that I demonstrate in this course. I'll go over that in more detail in the next lesson. The final characteristic of knitting needles is their material. These needles are beechwood, but knitting needles can be plastic, bamboo, or metal. Again, I encourage you to try out some knitting needles in store to see what your material preferences. Wrap a bit of yarn around them to see if you prefer a textured needles such as bamboo, or something more slippery such as metal. Click and rub the needles together to see how they sound. It may seem silly, but believe me, when you're working on a long knitting project, a constant irritating sound will really make you not want to finish. Once you've found your perfect needles, it's time to pick your yarn. The thickness of yarn is described in different weights. These range from light weight yarns like lace and fingering weight yarns up to thicker yarns like worsted weight and bulky. I'm not going to go into detail about every kind of yarn weight, but let's focus on bulky and worsted weight. As these are the two types of yarn I recommend for this project. The yarn that I'll demonstrate the project in is a bulky or chunky yarn. The advantage of using a bulky yarn is that it takes less stitches and therefore less time to knit a single chain link. This yarn is 100% marina wool, but you can use any fiber you choose. Just be aware that soft fibers like acrylic and merino wool tend to pill and fuzz easily. Stick to regular 100% wool if you don't like that look. Another type of yarn you could use for this project is worsted weight. This is a very popular type of yarn that is easy to find in a wide range of colors and fibers. Worsted weight is thinner than bulky yarn, so you'll likely need more stitches and rows to make a chain length that is the same size as mine. You'll find out your exact pattern by finding your gauge, which I'll demonstrate in the next lesson. When you're buying yarn for this project, two skins should be enough, but it never hurts to buy extra. Each weight of yarn has corresponding needle sizes that tend to work best with it. If you think of this from a practical point of view, it would be difficult, for example, to knit the small stitches of a thin needle with a really chunky yarn. For bulky weight yarn, eight millimeter needles will work well. If you choose a worsted weight yarn, try four on a two millimeter to five and a two millimeter needles if you're able. It's nice to have a variety of needle sizes to try out different yarns with and see the combo that gets you the look you like the best. Other tools you should have for this project are scissors, a ruler, and a tapestry or weaving needle. This is a blunt metal or plastic needle we use for weaving in yarn, tails, and joining seams. Before we move on, let's quickly go over some key details about our knitting tools and materials. The recommended materials for this project are bulky yarn and eight millimeter straight knitting needles. If you choose a thinner yarn needle, be aware that your pattern will need to be adjusted to get the same result. Try out different needles and try to shot for yarn in person to find something you like. Scissors. A ruler and a tapestry needle will round out your knitting tool kit. In the next lesson, I'll show you how to dial in your exact knitting pattern by finding your gauge. 4. Finding Your Gauge: Finding your gauge, how is it that two knitters can use the same exact needles in yarn, follow the same exact knitting pattern, and still come out with two different size scarves. This is what happens when you don't find your gauge in. Knitting. Gauge refers to the number of stitches in rows per inch or centimeter in a pattern. The reason this can vary from person to person is that the tension with which you make your stitches can vary from person to person. Someone who pulls the yarn tighter when they knit will likely have more stitches and rows per inch than someone who keeps their yarn more relaxed. It's important to measure your gauge before every project using the same yarn and knitting needles you're using for that project, so that you get predictable results with each knitting project. The goal of your gauge Swatch will be to match the type of stitching you'll use in the project itself. In this case, we'll be working in the stock knit stitch. The stock net stitch involves knitting one row of knit stitches, flipping your work to the other side, and knitting one row of pearl stitches. Once you've knitted several rows in this pattern, you'll notice that one side has V shaped stitches and one side has shaped stitches. In this case, the V shaped stitches are on the front of our work. One V counts as one stitch and counting the V's vertically, we'll tell you how many rows you have. The gauge I created this scarf pattern in has three stitches and four rows per inch. When measuring your gauge, it's important to not stretch or warp your knitting. I have mine pinned to an ironing board to keep it flat. Measure your 1 " square in the middle of your knitting as rows and stitches around the perimeter of the Swatch tend to be tighter or rolled under. The next four lessons will show you how to cast on pearl knit and cast off. These four skills are everything you need to know to knit a gauge swatch and it's a great opportunity to get comfortable with using your needles before diving into scarf making. You can knit a gauge swatch that's the same dimensions as the rectangular chain link of the project. Or you can knit a gauge swatch that's a standard square shape. The rectangle link is nine stitches wide by 36 rows long. If you'd like your Swatch to be square, you can cast on nine stitches and knit 12 rows before casting off. You can find all these numbers in the PEF guide as well. Once you've knitted your Swatch, find the rough center and measure how many stitches and rows fit in a 1 " square area. If you have three stitches by four rows in a 1 " area, then your gauge matches mine and you can fall the scarf pattern as written. If you have more than three stitches in an inch, then you're either knitting with a tighter tension, working with a finer yarn, or using narrower needles. That's absolutely fine, and all you need is some easy math to adapt your gauge to the project pattern. The width of a single link is 3 ", multiply three by the number of stitches per inch in your swatch. Let's say for example that in your Swatch you have four stitches per inch. Then you would multiply three by four to get 12 the number of stitches you cast on and the width of your chain link. You can use the same formula to find out how many rows to knit, except replace the three with nine, which is the length of my chain link in inches. If you end up with a half number, after you do your math, round up to the nearest whole number, make note of your new stitch and row counts, as these are now your chain link pattern. I also want to emphasize that you should feel free to change up the dimensions of the rectangle if you want a different look to your chain scarf experiment. And how fun, just bear in mind that with the stock knit stitch, the edges will curl under the width of the rectangle you're knitting will be wider than the final width of the chain link. Now that you know the what and why of finding your gauge, it's time to learn the how in the next few lessons. But first, let's recap what you've learned about knitting gauge. Gauge refers to the number of stitches in rows per inch or centimeter in a pattern. The size of your knitting needles, the weight of your yarn, and the amount of tension you knit with can all affect your gauge. Measure your gauge before every project and compare it to the gauge in the knitting pattern you're using. Adjusting as necessary. Next, weuckle over how to actually knit. If this is your first time watching these next lessons, use these steps to knit your gauge Swatch. If you've already found your gauge, these are the same exact steps you'll use to create a chain link. First, let's learn how to cast on. 5. Casting On: Casting on. Before you start knitting stitches, you first need to get your yarn onto a needle. This is called Casting On. To begin, we need to make a slip knot. Pull out a few feet of yarn to give yourself some slack, leaving a generous tail about a foot and a half. For this project, hold a point on the yarn with your right hand as you create a four with the other side of the yarn. Wrap the yarn under and through the big loop, pulling to close the knot and tugging one of the yarns to tighten the loop a bit. Slip the loop onto a needle and tighten the loop just enough for it to hug the needle, but still comfortably slide up and down. Now you have two yarns. The working yarn, which is the side attached to the skin, and the tail end with the tail end in your left hand and the needle with the loop in the other. Wrap your thumb around the yarn from the back and under, creating a loop. Bring the tip of the needle under the loop, so it's in there with your thumb. And you're now holding the needle with your left hand. Pick up the working yarn with your right hand and wrap it around the needle and between your thumb, using your forefinger to keep the loops on the needle. Bring your thumb up and slip the loop over the needle tip, pulling the working yarn tight. As you do, keep your hands as relaxed as you can while you do this and only pull the yarn enough to keep the loops flush with the needle, Not tight and immovable. Once you get into the rhythm of casting on, you'll find you can do it quite quickly. Cast on a total of nine stitches for this project, or follow the pattern adjustments you made in the previous lesson. The amount of stitches you cast on will be the width of your rectangle. If you'd like, keep casting on stitches until you get the hang of it. You can always take the stitches off the needle and pull them loose if you need to. Don't do anything with the tail end at the minute as we'll use that at the end to join our seams. Up next I'll show you how to make the pearl stitch. 6. The Purl Stitch: Pearl stitch. The type of stitch will be knitting for this project is called the stock knit stitch. The style alternates a row of the knit stitch with a row of the pearl stitch to create a smooth side of V shaped stitches and a more textured side of C shaped stitches. The long tail cast on method I showed you was essentially a knit stitch to keep in our row pattern of knit, pearl knit, pearl. Our next row needs to be pearl stitches from the previous lesson. You should have casted nine stitches onto your needle with your right hand. Insert the tip of the empty needle into the first loop in front of the left hand needle. Wrap the working yarn around the front needle and hold it in place with your right thumb and forefinger. Slide the right hand needle down while pulling the working yarn down to make sure it doesn't slide off the tip of the needle. Bring the needle down and up through the loop. I like keeping the tip of the right hand needle against the left hand needle to make sure the yarn doesn't slide off. Use the right hand needle and your finger to slide the loop off the left hand needle and gently tug the working yarn to tighten the loop. You've just completed a pearl stitch. Let's see that one more time. Keep purling until you reach the end of the row. As you knit, keep your grip relaxed and try not to pull and wrap the yarn too tightly. If your loops aren't sliding up and down the needle with ease, it may be a sign that your tension is too tight. Once you've purled the last stitch, you've completed your first row. Flip your work around. So the needle with the knitting is now in your left hand and the empty needle is in your right. Next up, we'll work a row of knit stitches. 7. The Knit Stitch: The knit stitch. The stitch is similar to the pearl stitch except that we're going to work each loop behind the needle rather than in front of it. Holding your knitting in your left hand, take the other needle in your right hand and insert the tip through the first loop behind the other needle. You should now be holding both needles in your left hand with your right hand, wrap the working yarn around the back needle, bringing it down to touch the loop, holding the back needle in your right hand. Again, bring the tip over the working yarn and down under the loop, slide the loop off the left hand needle and gently tug the working yarn to bring up the slack. You've just completed a knit stitch. Let's see that again once more, Keep knitting until you've completed your second row. You can now begin to see what the stock knit stitch looks like. Flip your work around as you did before, to work a row of pearl stitches, keep alternating rows of pearl stitches and knit stitches until you have the number of rows you need for your Swatch pattern. Remember, for the gauge Swatch you need at least 12 rows. And for the chain link you need 36 rows or whatever number you calculated when you made your pattern adjustments. Once you have enough rows, you can move on to the next step, casting off. 8. Casting Off: Casting off. To get a clean finish on your pattern piece, we need to do what's called casting off or binding off. If you've knitted an even number of rows, the side you're now working from should be the pearl stitch side or the side with all the C shaped stitches. If you've knitted an odd number of rows, the knit stitch side will be facing you. The cast off method for each side is slightly different and I'll show you both starting with the pearl stitch side. To begin pearl two stitches, slip the first stitch over the second stitch and off the needle you've just cast off one stitch, perl another stitch, and slip the previous stitch over and off the needle as you did before. Repeat this process until you reach the last stitch. Cut the yarn, leaving yourself a foot or more of tail. Wrap the tail around your needle once to make a loop. And slip your last stitch over it and off the needle, pull the loop all the way through to release the tail and tighten it to secure the end. Don't trim your tail as we're going to use it in the next lesson. To cast off knit wise, we're going to do almost the same technique except with knit stitches instead of pearl stitches, knit two stitches, slip the first stitch over the second stitch and off your needle knit another stitch and again slip the previous stitch over the stitch you just knit. And off the needle, repeat this process for the rest of the row until you have one final stitch on your needle. Cut the yarn, giving yourself at least a foot of tail. Wrap the tail once around the needle to make a loop. And slip the stitch over this loop and off the needle. Use the needle or your fingers to pull the loop all the way through and tighten to secure. Now your pattern piece is complete. As you can see, the sites have a natural tendency to roll under, but we're using this to our advantage as it will give our chain link, heft and dimension. If you've just completed your gauge Swatch, you can go back to the lesson finding your gauge to measure your stitches and dial in any pattern adjustments you need to make. If you've just completed the chain link pattern piece, you can move on to the next lesson, where I show you how to join edges and seams. 9. Joining: Joining. To complete our chain link. We're going to join each short edge with a bit of hand sewing. Normally, to finish a knitted edge, you would weave in your two tail ends. But in this case, we're going to use one of them as a thread for a seam. First, we're going to figure out which tail end to weave in. Orient your knitting so that the stitches along the edges are V's facing up. Take the bottom and bring it behind to meet the top edge and create a loop. You should now have a tail on either side of your seam. The tail on the right side is the one we'll sew with the tail on the left side is the one will weave in and trim. Thread your tapestry needle with this tail. And working from the pearl side of your pattern piece, insert the needle into one of the C shaped stitches, pulling the yarn through until the knot is more flush with the edge of the knitting. Now bring the needle through the next stitch in the same row, but this time down through the stitch. Instead of up for the next stitch, you'll bring the needle up again. Continuing this pattern for at least four or five stitches. Before you trim the excess tail, double check the front of your work as the woven tail end should be invisible from this side. Now you can trim the Exxis tail. We're ready to join our two edges. This technique is tailored specifically to the stock knit stitch and is virtually seamless if your sides have rolled under, unfurl them as best you can, and line up the top and bottom of your rectangle from the knitted side as you did before. So that the vertical columns of V stitches line up starting from the right side. The first column of V should be right side up. If they're upside down, rotate the knitting 180 degrees, so they're right side up. The tail end you should use to sew should be on the right side. If it isn't, you can always weave it through the back to get it to the other side. For this demonstration, I'm going to use a contrasting yarn instead of my yarn tail so that you can see what I'm doing. To make this easier to explain, I'm going to call this row row one. And this row row two, thread your tapestry needle and insert it from behind to come through the middle of the first V in row two, just below your casting stitches. Pull the yarn all the way through and insert the needle behind the first V in row one, This time coming out on the other side of the V rather than through the middle. Insert the needle down through the middle of the corresponding V in row two, and back out through the middle of the next on the left. Pull the yarn through and insert the needle behind the next in row one, going in one side of the stitch and coming out the other. Now you can begin to see the pattern of our stitches. We're essentially making these stitches to connect the columns in row one and two so that they look seamless. You can tighten up these stitches as you go or keep everything loose and tighten up the slack at the end. Keep doing this pattern until you reach the end of the row. Finishing with your needle on the back side of your work. Make a knot and weave in the tail end. As you did before, roll under the sides again and give the chain link a little tug to even out the tension. There you have it. You've completed one whole chain link knit, as many chain links as you like to create the scarf length you prefer. I like eight to ten links, but it's totally up to you. Remember that for your next links, you'll need to insert them into a previous link before you join the edges. You can also decide if you want your chain link scarf to be continuous, so you can wear it like a necklace, or if you want to keep the ends free so you can wrap it around. The possibilities for customization for this project are endless. Remember to take a picture of your scarf and post it to the project gallery to inspire your fellow students. I can't wait to see what you create. Up next, I'll show you how to solve some common problems in knitting. 10. Problem Solving: Problem solving. When you're knitting, there are a few problems you may run into. One of the most common is drop stitches. If a stitch slips off your needle, this is called a drop stitch. Looking closely at knitted stitches, we can see that they're essentially a loop pulled through the loop below it. Once you understand this, you'll find it easier to correct a drop stitch. First, find the loop that was dropped, You should see one or more horizontal lengths of yarn behind it. If you don't, then it's likely that this stitch has only just slipped off your left or right needle, and you can slip it back on to continue working. If you do see this horizontal yarn, insert a needle into the loop from the front, Catch the lowest horizontal yarn and pull it through the loop. You've just recovered one stitch. If you need to repeat this process until you've recovered the drop stitch from each row and slip the loop back onto your left hand needle. If you can't tell which needle the stitch slip from, an easy way to check is to count the rows below each stitch. The stitches from your right hand needle will have more rows than the stitches from your left hand needle. What happens if you've already knitted a few rows past your drop stitch? You'll need to pull out some stitches along your row to get to the point where you dropped your stitch. You can do this one stitch at a time, slipping them onto a needle as you go, so that you don't drop even more stitches. Try not to get discouraged when you have to pull out stitches and start again. As knitters do this all the time, even the most experienced ones, if you can find relaxation in the process of knitting, rather than anxiousness to get to the final result. You won't get flustered by bumps in the row or little mistakes. All right? You fix your drop stitches. But what happens when you reach the end of your ball of yarn in the middle of knitting? Luckily, there's an easy fix for this. You can simply tie your yarn tail to a new skin of yarn, making sure the knot is in the back of the knitting. If you want to tie a regular overhand knot for this, that's absolutely fine for this project. I've done it plenty of times and I won't tell anyone if, however you want a more professional finish, you can make something called a magic knot. Make your tail ends parallel and overlap, so the top one is pointing to the left and the bottom one is pointing to the right. Take the left hand tail and loop it over and behind the right hand tail and behind itself making a loop. Pull the tail through this loop and tighten the knot. Do the same thing with the right hand tail, taking the end over and behind the left hand yarn and behind itself, pull the tail through this loop and tighten this second knot. Now take each yarn and pull tight, so the knots meet and tighten together. Now you can either trim the ends or weave them in later after you've finished your knitting. If you have any other problems you need solving or if you have any questions at all, please reach out in the discussion section. I'm happy to help and I love having the opportunity to connect directly with you. 11. Keep Having Fun!: Congratulations on completing this course. I hope you had fun learning the basics of knitting. The skills you've learned are just the stepping stones to a wide variety of knitting projects. As I talked about in this class, this scarf project has so much potential for you to experiment and try new looks. Here are a few prompts to get you inspired. Try creating a striped effect by changing colors every six rows. Using the magic knot to join different yarns. Double your cast on stitches and rows to create an exaggerated extra large chain link. Create some whimsy by joining different sizes and colors of chain links into one scarf. Be sure to keep me posted on your knitting ideas by uploading photos to the project gallery. If you share your work on Instagram or Tik Talk, please tag me at Art dot, which underscore so I can cheer you on. If you enjoyed this class, please take a moment to leave me a review. It really means a lot to me to hear about your experiences with the courses I create for you. Until next time, keep in touch and happy knitting.