This is it! The long-awaited post that will enable every one of you with a basic foundation of knitting and willingness to try out stranded colorwork to knit your very own Loki Scarf! And I bet approximately none of you will replicate my efforts because the way I did this is stupidly insane. It works. But it’s insane.
This, my friends, is approximately six feet of laceweight yarn worked in a combination of stranded colorwork and intarsia. The chart I created, which is available here, and is completely free, is based on a twelve-stitch repeat.
I worked six repeats across, and added ten stitches to each side for the border, so I cast on a total of 93 stitches. Ten stitches were worked with what I’ll call the C color, then I worked the chart repeats, twisting the working C yarn with the working yarn for the chart repeat (if this doesn’t make any sense, brush up on your intarsia skills). Knit the chart, then twisted the last working yarn with the other ball of C yarn for the other band. You’ll have a total of four balls of yarn going, but you’ll only be working with two at any time. Work the chart three times, then work seventeen rows of C (you can drop one of the balls from the edge and just work with one strand of C), then work the chart until you’re about three inches from the desired length. Work seventeen rows of C again, work three more repeats of the chart, purl one RS row, knit one WS row, take a couple of shots of your liquor of choice, and then do all of that again. If you really like yourself, you’ll start mattress stitching the sides as you go—knit a few repeats, seam up the sides, keep on knitting.
That’s right. You want this scarf to be double-sided? The easiest way I could come up with (and granted, my brain was not entirely connected to my body at this time) is to knit a scarf twice as long as the finished piece.
I totally cheated and used the fringe to close the gap between the cast-on and bind-off edges, as I couldn’t even begin to fathom seaming anything if it wasn’t completely necessary. I trimmed the fringe to about three inches at each end, so I’m pretty sure this scarf clocked in at over six and a half feet by the time it was done. The yarn, which is 100% cotton, stretched out a little bit while it was blocking, and is amazingly not too heavy.
I want to knit a scarf with this pattern and these colors for myself, but I’m thinking it will probably be a sport weight wool version, and double-sided, which traditionally means the colors are inverted between the sides, but it sounds so much more delightful than knitting twice the scarf.
And as I was waiting to post this until I had super awesome action shots…
That’s Jessi in her awesome Black Widow costume taking on Adam as Loki. And here’s a close up of the scarf.
Many thanks to Adam for sharing the photos, and for rocking the hell out of this scarf, and for not telling people at DragonCon that I’d knit scarves for them.
Questions about the construction of the scarf? Need more clarification? Want to offer me heaps of praise (don’t do that, you’ll only encourage the madness)? Comment below!
you crazy crazy panda, this is AMAZING and your friend looks AMAZING in her outfit and the SCARF IS FANTASTIC omg srsly you rock. :o)
Doesn’t she look great? All her DragonCon costumes were amazing. And yes, I’m insane.
Oh my gosh, this is stunning!! Your lace-weight works have been amazing!!
Why thank you! All this lace weight explains why I’m all “Ooooh what can I knit in a BULKY YARN.” 😀
You are insane.
And I am just nuts enough to want to try this.
AFTER I get my Christmas knitting done. :0)
At least I’m in good company!
I’ll never stop telling you how amazing this is. YOU ARE A GOD!
stop it, you darling. *blushes*
A God of MISCHIEF!!
Amazing! I am dazzled by your patience, and that scarf.
Thanks! 😀
That is an awesome, amazing scarf!
I must say how Adam is cute too.
Thank you! He does make an excellent Loki.
Fan-bloody-tastic!
Cheers!
This is AMAZING!! I wish I knew how to knit, let alone knew someone who does, because I totally want one. You are, indeed, crazy, for taking the time to knit this. Again, it’s amazing and beautiful!
Thank you so much!
This is incredible. I admire your patience! The scarf is amazing.
Why thank you!
The scarf is fantastic! Gotta try it – my DIL loves stuff like this, so she may (maybe) get one for Christmas – if I’m smart enough to follow your directions! Brilliant mind!! So glad I found this site!!
Thanks! If you come up with an easier way to make it double-sided, please let me know!
I realized I never commented on the post itself…this scarf is beyond amazing, and so are you!
Thank you!! 😀
[…] the pinnacle of nerdy knits, there’s Threadpanda’s Loki Scarf. It is a lace weight, double knit version of the colorwork scarf that Loki wears in the […]
[…] Super special Friday Finds this week! Some of you may have noticed that I kind of love The Avengers. If you haven’t, you clearly need to be following me on Twitter. (Or not, if that’s not you’re kind of thing, but COME ON.) In honor of the DVD and Blu-ray release of Avengers, I bring you an super-sized Avengers-themed Friday Finds! And don’t forget, you can always go crazy and replicate the Loki scarf! […]
Fantastic work! Is there anyway I can buy one from you? :0
Nope! I explained the amount of work that goes into knitting one of these in this post: https://threadpanda.wordpress.com/2012/08/22/no-i-will-not-knit-you-a-loki-scarf/ Sorry!
Pattern! Must have pattern! (In the almost Halloween spirit, imagine a zombie knitter asking for patterns…I mean, brains).
The chart and the paragraph below it are about as much of a pattern that will likely ever be, because this “pattern” is pretty straightforward. Knit this chart until the single side is as long as you want the whole scarf, then turn around and knit it again.
Ah ok. Thanks for letting me know. I just assumed you would eventually release a pattern due to its shear awesomeness.
Yeah, for various reasons, including some that would get me hot water with my place of employment, that’s likely the only “pattern” that I’ll make available for the foreseeable future. That’s not to say I won’t one day convert it to a proper PDF pattern, but this is all I have for now. If you do try to make this, let me know if you have any questions!!
Thank you for detailing how to make Loki’s scarf!! I saw your friend at NYCC and loved his scarf! As a knitter I’ve been turning over and over how I could make this scarf! Maybe double knitting could solve the issue of knitting a scarf that is twice as long as needed. Off to make a project in Ravelry. 🙂
Why didn’t you make the main color and the edge color the same?
Hey Melissa! Sorry for the delay; glad you like the scarf and I can’t wait to see how yours turns out! As for the color choices, Jessi and I determined that the green shade in the main body of the scarf was slightly darker than the edge color. This involved A LOT of time spent staring at a photo of Loki in Dusseldorf. Rough job, that. 😉 It may be that they are the same colors, but both of us thought that they weren’t the same. Clearly we need to get a hold of someone who has seen the original scarf and can inform us!
Coincidence! I just came across this .gif file and you can see that the edge color and body color are different!
*laugh* and I now have ANOTHER reason to learn to knit. You’d think since I sew, crochet, and make several forms of lace that I could knit…but no.
Thanks to figuring out a pattern! You Rock!
curious as to what yarn you used? Just any lace weight that matched color requirements? It’s amazing and I’ve got to give it a go after the holidays!!
I used Valley Yarns 8/2 unmercerized cotton. It’s technically a weaving yarn, but it works really well as a laceweight.
Ohh thanks, just found it on Ravelry too :)! Ever thought of knitting it in the round? I imagine that would require tweaking the chart but it might work instead of knitting double the length?
I think I discussed it in one of my blog posts, but knitting it in the round would have required somehow working the green edges in intarsia in the round and carrying the other two yarn colors over a long length of 20 stitches before starting back up. Which is not to say that it can’t be done in the round, but in order to a) keep my sanity, b) keep the edges from puckering, and c) get the scarf to lay flat, knitting it down and back was the easiest thing I could think of.
Just wondering what specific colors you used…. I’m crazy enough to do this and want my scarf to look amazing like yours!
If you look at my Ravelry page–http://ravel.me/threadpanda/8rqdc–it lists the specific colors and approximate yardages. You can do it!
[…] baby blankets” plan (yeah, I’m still working on that). And let’s not forget the Loki Scarf (and the subsequent, no, I will not knit you a Loki Scarf). Or that time way back when that I knit […]