How to Knit a Scarf for Beginners

Knitting is one of the most satisfying of hobbies, and today let’s learn How to Knit a Scarf with this easy tutorial! Time to shop for your first knitting needle and choose a pretty yarn!

Knitting has been my favorite hobby of all time, and on this blog you will find many easy colorful Knitting Ideas to inspire you. If you are a beginner at knitting (or have forgotten how to) today let’s see how to knit a scarf- in step by step photos

Making anything out of just yarn is so much fun! Creating swatches of fabric out of just a ball of yarn is an amazing feeling. Once you know how to knit a scarf, you will want to make many more as fast as you can. Try this Quick Knit Scarf Pattern next!

How do you Knit a basic scarf for beginners? What You will need:

To learn how to knit a scarf today, you will need a pair of knitting needles (I used size 10 here), a ball of Bernat Velvet yarn in a color of your choice and a pair of scissors.

What Knit Stitch is best for a scarf?

A great beginner friendly stitch for scarves is the Garter Stitch where all you do is knit each and every row.

how to knit a scarf: step by step

Here I will walk you through the basic knitting terms, just enough for you to learn how to knit a scarf this week.

THE 3 STEPS OF HOW TO KNIT A SCARF:

1. Casting on the Stitches
2. Learning How to Knit Each Stitch
3. Casting off the Stitches

Step 1: Casting On Your Stitches

Casting on your stitches is a fancy term for starting your knit project- where you basically open your yarn skein and create the 1st row of stitches onto a needle.

To begin your scarf create a loop of yarn as shown. Now using your right hand thumb and forefinger reach into this loop and pull the yarn through to form another loop.

Pull the start of the yarn tightly till you have a small knot at the base of the loop. Now slip this loop onto your knitting needle.

Now slide the knot up till you have a somewhat tight stitch on your needle. There is no need to tighten it too much, tighten it just a tad. You have now cast on your first stitch!

Next hold this needle in your left hand and pick up the other empty knitting needle in your right hand.

Insert the right needle into (under) the first stitch on the left needle. With your right hand pick up and loop the yarn around the tip of the right needle and pull this yarn through the existing stitch. You should now have one stitch on your right needle. Slip this stitch onto the left hand needle. You have now cast on two stitches.

Repeat this pattern of insert needle, loop yarn, pull yarn through stitch, slip stitch from the right needle onto left needle till you have cast on the desired number of stitches.

How many stitches do you need to make a scarf? For this simple scarf, you will need to cast on 18 stitches.

Once you have created18 stitches onto one needle you have learnt how to cast on!

Step 2: How to Knit a Row

Now hold your needle with the stitches in your left hand and the empty needle in your right hand.

Insert the right needle into the first stitch on the left needle. With your right-hand loop the yarn around the tip of the right needle and pull this yarn through the existing stitch. You should now have one stitch on your right needle.

Slip the first stitch of the left-hand needle off the needle (This is the opposite of casting on where you move the stitches from right needle to left )You have now knit one stitch! Now simply repeat this for the remaining 17 stitches.

Continue in this manner, insert the needle, loop yarn, pull yarn through stitch, slip stitch off the left needle till all the stitches from the left needle have been transferred to the right-hand needle

You have now knit your first row!

To make a scarf, you will be creating a long narrow rectangular piece of yarn fabric. Continue knitting each row, transferring stitches from one needle to another till you have achieved the desired length of your scarf.

For beginners, I would recommend knitting row after row until you have almost (but not quite!) finished up the skein of yarn.

Step 3: To cast off

Once you have a long enough scarf, it’s time to cast off the stitches.

Knit the first two stitches of the row. You should now have two stitches on your right-hand needle. Insert your left-hand needle into the stitch farthest from the tip and pull it over The stitch is closer to the tip of the needle. You have now successfully cast off one stitch.

Knit the next stitch and slip it off the left needle. As you did before, slip the farthest stitch. You should be left with one stitch remaining on the right-hand needle. Continue in this manner till you have knit and cast off all the stitches and only one stitch remains on the right-hand needle. Cut the yarn leaving a small tail, and pull the tail through this final stitch.

Your scarf is now ready! I hope you found this how to knit a scarf tutorial useful!

Here are more Scarf Patterns for you to explore and try. If you ready for a bigger project, start an easy Garter Stitch Blanket that uses just the basic knit stitch!

Follow Smitha Katti’s board Knitting and Crochet on Pinterest.

How to knit a scarf tutorial was originally published on the Fiskars website