The Seed Stitch Scarf

The Seed Stitch Scarf is a very easy and very pretty scarf to quickly knit up. I usually keep a few in my box of knitted gifts, to snatch up and give away on birthdays and other holidays – just in case something slips my mind!

This Scarf comprises of sequential knits and purls across a row resulting in a texturally appealing pattern.

For this scarf, I cast on 52 stitches using Double Knit/ 8ply yarn on size 4.00mm needles.

I used 3 balls of acrylic yarn each containing 100g and with an approximate meterage of 230m. Acrylic can’t be ironed, so keep that in mind if you’re considering blocking it out after you’ve finished knitting.

On the first row: *K1, P1 (and repeat until the end of the row.)
Row 2: *P1, K1, (and repeat until the end of the row).

Repeat these two rows to create the seed stitch pattern.

My Seed Stitch Scarf was cast off when it reached two meters, or 6 and a half feet long, but the length of this scarf is completely up to personal tastes on scarf length. The width of this scarf is 30cm, so add more stitches (keeping an even number of stitches) to increase width, or remove more stitches to decrease the width.

Alternatively, different yarn weights/plys, needle sizes and knitting gauge can create different results. I also find that seed stitch tends to run slightly wider and shorter than stockinette stitch, so beginners should keep that in mind if attempting to create a specific shape to their scarf.

I nearly exclusively use acrylics due to issues with contact dermatitis with wool and various other animal fibers, so if you’re using a different yarn material, expect slightly different results in texture, aesthetics, wear and tear, washability and stretch.

Share your seed stitch creations with me!

Velvet and Whips

French feels like velvet in my mouth.

L’anglais se sent comme le claquement d’un fouet.

I wasn’t raised with around a variety of languages; that is most Australians have completed at least a small class on German or French while in primary school, or a segment in High School if you were lucky enough to attend a well-funded school.

But I wasn’t lucky enough to experience that, besides a quick class on German, where most students dozed off and graduated lucky enough if they could remember how to count to 10 (I certainly can’t!).

But now I live in a city where you can hear Arabic and Hindi while you wait for a bus, and Mandarin and Cantonese while you head to the grocery store.

Tones and syntax are audibly fascinating to me; that culture is wrapped around words and words around culture. That you say “My name is Madison” in english, but “Je m’appelle Alice” in another (quite literally I call myself Alice).

I am also a synesthesiac.

I could never quite explain why some things has smells but not colours, or somethings have colours but not smells. Some have sensations or innate connotations I can’t explain.

Thursday is royal purple, Monday is munsell red, Wednesday is garnet brown, Tuesday and Fridays are light (asparagus) and dark green (artichoke). Saturday is Tyrian Purple.

Sunday has no colour but smells of barley and wheat, and maybe just a little Vegemite.

English feels like the crack of the whip.

Le Français se sent comme velours dans ma bouche.

Arabic smells like smoke; like burning logs in a fireplace and insists on an ashy grey. Mandarin tastes like sticky date pudding, all caramel and sickly sweet but conjures pomegranate reds. Hindi is sharp and clean and cool; the feeling of a freshly cleansed face and brings a duller red to mind. Cantonese is something savoury, and one day I’ll be able to find the words to explain it but I can express the warmth of the muted orange it brings with its tones.

 

Romanian tastes like plums in liquid form, something not quite a juice, something sharper on the tongue. It feels like pomegranates, and standing under a commercial air-conditioning unit.

Welsh feels like fur and thick cotton, something crunchy like almonds and people gathering.

Hebrew feels like a full stomach, like macadamia pancakes covered in maple syrup, like broad leaves and a smile.

 

French feels like a heavy cape on my shoulders, a high buttoned collar on my throat and tastes like metal in my mouth. French is like fresh paint on my fingertips (a brownish-red).

English is brown, and smells of rain, and feels like damp soil under my bare feet, squished between my toes. Like soil after rain, waiting for new seeds to take root.

English never felt like anything to me, until I picked up a French textbook and started to read.

There are so many languages in the world, and I don’t know which ones I’ll end up speaking, or how they’ll change my perceptions of language. English never felt like healthy, life-filled soil before French felt like wet paint.

But I have always loved English, and words and communication and stories.

And I have always loved the feeling of soft alive soil under my bare feet.

Maybe English had always felt this way, and I had never known anything else.