Double Knit OSU Beaver Scarf

Hello!  I'm going to start by posting a run-through of a scarf I made this summer, my monster OSU Beaver Scarf.  The scarf is double knit, and therefore double-sided, and ended up approximately eight feet long!

The scarf draped over a chair

I'm 5' 10", so this is for length.  It is reversed because it is in the mirror.

As you can see, the words are visible from both sides.

 My job last summer involved running a lot of code and processing data, which allowed me to have copious thumb twiddling time on my hands.

I designed in Excel, and modified the logos of OSU.  The "New Beaver" definitely has the advantage in that it requires fewer yarn colors!

The scarf took me approximately four weeks to complete.  There are a lot of great double knitting tutorials online.

One of the things I had to figure out for myself was how to get the letters to be readable on both sides.  I will post a tutorial soon on how to do this, with pictures.  But for now...

The challenge with double knitting is you're creating two pieces of fabric at once.  Switching between the main color and the contrast color is what holds the two sides together and creates one lovely piece of thick, warm cloth.  When I read a pattern, I generally read right to left.  But when you want the letters to be readable, you read from right to left for one side of the pattern, and from left to right for the other.

I know it sounds confusing.  I generally pattern and read in Excel, and I have a technique I find helpful.  I copy over the pattern and reverse it, column by column, and stick it right under the original.  Then, I delete line by line as I go.  The hard part is keeping track of which is the main and which is the contrast color for which side of the fabric.  If you like hard copies of patterns better, I find highlighter works well for this as well.

If I were to make this again, I would reduce some of the argyle spacing between the elements, and make the scarf slightly more even as a result.

NOTE:  This project is not endorsed by Oregon State University.  No profit is being made from this project.  This is simply a student fan work, like a sign you would hold up at a football game.

Yarn:  Red Heart Soft, in orange and black, 1.5 skeins each.
Needles:  9.5 US straight needles.

OSU Beaver Scarf Pattern (pdf)

The light purple on the sides represents a knit stitch in both colors.  This binds the scarf together at the edges and creates a nice border.

Beaver Close Up

If you want to share this, please link back here!  :)

The Memorial Union (my design)

Best of luck!