hi! i’m davina of sheepandstitch.com. today,we’re going to learn how to knit a cowl or scarf using seed stitch and any yarn youhave. now, i love seed stitch, because it’s got a great, nubby texture that lays flatand is the same on both sides. seed stitch is also knit entirely out of knits and purl.so, if you know how to knit, purl, cast on and cast off, then you’re ready to knitseed stitch. and if you don’t know how to do any of these things, then check out myhow to knit video series. now, this video is packed with a lot of information, so ifyou want to skip ahead or jump around, you can refer to the chapter markers down in thedescription. alright, ready to go? yeah? yeah? okay, let’s start knitting!
so in this video, we’re going to learn howto knit seed stitch on flat needles like this, in order to make a scarf. and we’ll alsolearn how to knit up seed stitch on circular needles like this so that we can make a cowl.and we’ll also learn how to cast off in pattern and also how to wet block if you decideyou want your cowl or scarf to have a little bit of drape. and we’ll also learn how tocalculate the right number of cast on stitches for any yarn weight that you have hangingaround. so the cowl i’ve knit up here is knit withbulky weight yarn. and it’s knit with just one skein of martta the merino, which is aone-ply merino yarn that’s so yummy. just one skein is needed to knit up this entirecowl, with quite a bit of yarn leftover. so
this is available in the sheep & stitch storeand it’s the color sunset. now to knit seed sittch on two needles, you’llneed to cast on an even number of stitches. on this needle, i’ve cast on 16 stitches,which is an even number. so the number of stitches that you cast on for your scarf dependson how wide you want your scarf to be. the number of cast on stitches determines thewidth of your scarf. so if i’ve cast on 16 stitches here, i can be pretty sure thatmy scarf will be at least this wide, but probably a bit wider. it will probably spread an extrainch or so when i knit into my stitches. so when you’re casting on your stitches,just eyeball how wide you want your scarf to be and cast on the number of stitches thatgets you the width you want, and prepare for
it to spread out a bit. okay, so this looks pretty good to me. i’mgoing to start knitting my seed stitch. so, seed stitch is basically a two row pattern.and we repeat those two rows. on row 1 we’re going to knit 1 and then purl 1. i’m goingto bring my yarn up front because that’s how we purl. then i’m going to go from thetop to the bottom, and we’ll purl that second stitch. and that’s the repeat for our row1: knit 1 and purl 1. so, we’ll repeat that. we’ll do another knit 1, and then bringour yarn up front for our purl. so we’re just alternating knits and purls, and we’llcontinue going. knit 1 and purl 1. if you ever forget whether you’re supposedto knit or purl, just look at the stitch that
went before. i’ve just done a purl stitch,and i can tell from this little bump here. so now i know that i need to do a knit stitchnext. so complete your first row of seed stitch doing one knit and one purl. once you’redone, we’ll move on to the second row. so, now i’ve finished row 1, and you cansee that my last stitch is a purl stitch. you can tell from the little bump here. sonow let’s work row 2. i’m going to turn my needle over. row 2 is really the oppositeof row 1. row 2 starts with a purl 1, so i’m going to push my needle from the top to thebottom, and i’ve got my yarn up front. i’m going to purl that first stitch. and thenwe’re going to knit our second stitch. and then we’re going to purl and then knit.so we’re doing a purl 1 and a knit 1. and
we’re repeating this to the end of our row.that’s all there is to row 2. we’re basically reversing row 1. so try that out and workrow 2 of your seed stitch, purling one and knitting one. so now i’ve finished my two rows of seedstitch and that’s pretty much all there is to seed stitch. you would just repeat thesetwo rows until our scarf is the length that you like. or until you run out of yarn atwhich point you would cast off. so now i’m doing my last purl stitch onmy row 2 and here’s my last knit stitch. so now i’ve just completed row 2 of my seedstitch. and that’s all there is to seed stitch.
now if you’re worried about getting confusedand forgetting what row you’re on. you actually don’t need to refer to what row you’reon. i’ll show you a hack i use so that i can knit seed stitch without referring torow 1 and row 2 and all that. the one thing you need to remember about seed stitch isthat you always knit your purl stitches and you purl your knit stitches. so we’ve gota purl stitch here, and you can tell by this bump. so i’ve got a purl stitch here, andi’m not going to purl into the purl stitch. i’m going to knit into my purl stitch. mynext stitch is a knit stitch, and i can tell by this little v-shape. and knit stitchescan be recognised by their v-shapes. so i’ve got a knit stitch here, and i’m not goingto knit into it. i’m going to purl into
it. so i’ll bring my yarn up front and purlinto that knit stitch. and here’s we’ve got a purl stitch, sowe’re not purling into it. we’re going to knit into it. so we’re doing the oppositeof what the stitch is. the stitch is a knit stitch, so we’re not going to knit intoit. we’re going to purl into it. so i like to think of it as opposites attract. the oppositeof a purl stitch is a knit stitch and the opposite of a knit stitch is a purl stitch.and if you don’t believe me, you can look at the back of your knits and purls. herewe’ve got a purl stitch and let’s turn it over. you can see that the back of it isa knit stitch. pretty crazy, right? and here we’ve got a purl stitch. if we turn it overyou can see that it is a knit stitch. so it
really is the opposite. so when you think of opposites attract, youcan think of the purl stitch not wanting a purl stitch. the purl doesn’t want the sameold purl stitch. it doesn’t want the same thing as what it is. it wants the opposite.it wants a knit stitch. you can think of all your stitches when you’re knitting seedstitch as being experimental, or being in an experimental phase. they don’t want thesame thing as themselves. they want something new and different. they want the exact opposite.so the purl stitch is not into other purl stitches. our purl stitch wants a knit stitch,so we’ll give our purl stitch a knit stitch. we’ll give it the opposite of what it is.our knit stitch isn’t into other knit stitches.
our knit stitch wants a purl stitch, so let’sgive that knit stitch a purl stitch. you’re giving your stitches the opposite of whatit is. it’s into new things, new horizons. it wants to experience things that are unlikeitself. so here we’ve got a knit stitch, so i’m going to purl that knit stitch. so just remember: opposites attract. you’llnever need to refer to your pattern to knit seed stitch. all you need to remember is thatyou knit your purls and purl your knits. you’re doing the opposite of what your stitch is.you can also think of opposites attract. so i hope that helps you knit your seed stitchwithout a care in the world. all you need to do is look directly at your stitches totell you what to knit.
knitting seed stitch in the round is verysimilar to knitting on flat needles. it follows the same principle in that we are knittingour purls and purling our knits. we’re not doing what we’re “supposed†to be doing.but we cast on a different number of stitches. we cast on an odd number of stitches to knitin the round. so something like 19, 21, 23. these are odd numbers. whereas when we’reknitting on flat needles, we cast on an even number of stitches. for this cowl, i’ve cast on 57 stitcheswith my martta the merino yarn. that gives me a cowl that is about 25†in circumference.and after i wet blocked it, it spread out to about 26â€. just a quick tip. the needlesi’m using are 24†from this tip to this
tip - 24†and they are 10mm in size. now, in order to join this in the yarn, ineed to stretch out my stitches so that they actually meet. right now my stitches are kindof bunched up, and that’s because i don’t have that may stitches. remember my finishedcircumference is only 25†and my needles are 24†so i need to stretch out my stitchesso that they actually meet. i’m going to push my stitches, just like this. very primitive.we’re going to push our stitches to stretch them out so that they actually meet. herewe go. so now my stitches are right up close to the points of my needles so that i canactually join them in the round. oh! so here’s a tip. some people have saidthat they don’t like that when they join
in the round theres a bit of a gap where theyjoin. so i have a tip for you on how to minimise that join. to minimise the gap where you join in theround what i’m going to do is cast on one extra stitch. so i’ve got my odd numberof stitches. i’ve got 57 sts, and i’m going to cast on one extra stitch. now ifyou’re worried about this messing up your stitches, don’t worry because this extrastitch will disappear very quickly. it won’t become part of our knitting. so i’ve caston an extra stitch. now i’ve got 58 stitches on my needle. so i’m going to take my leftneedle and just grab that stitch that i just cast on, and i’m going to bring it overto my left needle like this. this yarn may
try to ride up, so don’t let it. just pullit down. i’ve clamped my fingers around it so it doesn’t fall away. and now my extracast on stitch is on my left needle. now i’m going to take this stitch right here, thissecond stitch on my left needle, and i’m going to bring my needle underneath it anddrop it over this stitch. so i’m going to pinch this first stitch here and bring thatsecond stitch over it. so now my second stitch is over my first stitch and i’m going totransfer this stitch back over to my right needle. so i’m going to take my right needleand bring that stitch back. my tail end is riding up again, so i’m going to grab thistail end and just pull it down. you’re not going anywhere, buddy. you’re staying inplace.
so now you’ll see that our extra stitchhas disappeared. we’ve just joined in the round. that extra stitch is right here now,and we’ve closed up any gaps that have formed. if you want, you can count up all of yourstitches, but i assure you that that extra stitch has disappeared. so now i have 57 stitcheson my needle. i don’t have 58 stitches, because that extra stitch is now down here.it’s joining our stitches together in the round. so when you do this, you minimise anyweird gap that forms when you knit in the round. so now we need to put our stitch marker inplace so we can mark the beginning and end of our round. i’m going to use one of myrings here. i love doing this because i frequently
do not have stitch markers around. so i’mgoing to take my ring ad put it onto my needle, and this will be my makeshift stitch marker. so now we’re ready to knit seed stitch inthe round. our first round is a knit 1 and then we’re going to purl 1. i’ll bringmy yarn up front and we will purl 1. and we’re going to repeat that: knit 1, purl 1 untilwe get to the last stitch of our round, and then we’re going to knit that guy. so verysimilar to seed stitch on two flat needles: knit 1, purl1, knit 1, purl 1. so let’swork this round together. just a little tip. if you’re knitting bulky weight yarn, andyou’ve cast on 57 stitches like me, it may be a little bit tight because your stitchesare stretched out. don’t worry about it.
just push your stitches up like this to getthem close to your needle point. so knit up round 1 and meet me back here and we’llwork round 2 together. so i’m nearing the end of round 1, doinga knit 1 and a purl 1. and now i’m at the last stitch of my round, and i’m going toknit that. so now i’ve finished my round 1. woohoo! so i’m going to bring my stitchmarker over. and now we’ll work round 2. so round 2 is very simple. we’re just goingto purl 1, so let’s bring our yarn up front, and we’ll do a purl 1 and a knit 1. andwe would repeat this all the way to the last stitch of our round at which point we wouldpurl 1. so the same principle applies to seed stitch in the round as it does on flat needles.
meaning that when you see a purl stitch, insteadof purling it, you would knit into it. and when you see a knit stitch you would purlinto it. so it’s not like stockinette stitch where you knit t the knits and purl the purls.with seed sittch you do the opposite of what the stitch is. so the stitch is a purl stitch,so you’re going to knit into it. the stitch is a knit stitch, so you’re going to purlinto it. so work round 2 of your seed stitch. so we’re nearing the end of round 2 andhere’s the last stitch of round 2 and we’re going to purl that knit stitch. perfect. sonow you’ve completed round 1 and round 2 of seed stitch. and now you would continueknitting, repeating round1 and round 2 until it becomes the height that you want, at whichpoint we can cast off.
i’m going to show you how to customise thispattern so that you can knit up a cowl in seed stitch using whatever yarn and needlecombination you have. first you’ll need a measuring tape like this. it’s best ifyou measure around your head or whoever’s head you’re knitting this cowl for, anddetermine how large you want the circumference of this cowl to be. so for me, i chose 25â€because i like a nice narrow cowl. but if you want a really long infinity scarf, youcan consider going up to 50†or even 55†or 60.†use a measuring tape like this,measure around your head and determine the size that you want. and once you’ve donethat, write that size down. so for me, i’m going to write down 25.†once you’ve determinedyour size, write that down and we’ll move
on to the next step. so once you’ve decided how large you wantyour cowl to be and you’ve written it down, then you’re going to knit a gauge swatch.and this is my little gauge swatch here. and i’ve used the yarn that i’m going to knitmy cowl with and also the needles i’ll knit my cowl with. this is a much thinner yarnthan what i had previously. this is an aran weight yarn, so i’ve knit up seed stitch.and the number of stitches that you cast on need to be larger than 4â€. so let’s see. my little swatch here is about6.25.†so when you cast on the number of stitches for your gauge swatch, make surethat when you measure out those stitches that
you have at least 4.†as you knit your seedstitch, your fabric will grow and expand. so at least 4â€. now a typical gauge swatchis 4†by 4†upwards. so 4†stitch-wise and 4†row-wise, but i don’t think weneed to knit a whole gauge swatch. we can do a “cheaty†version because we’rereally only interested in the stitch count. we want to know how many stitches make up4†and that will help us determine how many stitches we need to cast on for our cowl.so here i’ve knit up about 3†and that’s perfectly fine. if you’re short on timeyou can knit up 2†in seed stitch and that’s fine as well. so once you have your gauge swatch knit up,you can measure out 4.†i’m not going
to measure right from the edge. i’m goingto measure from the middle because the middle of the swatch gives us the best reading ofour knitting. so i’m going to start here, and i’ve got a split ring marker. so i’mgoing to mark that area. i’m going to squeeze this stitch marker in. great. and i’m goingto measure from here up to 4†which is about here. so i’m going to bring in my secondstitch marker like this. you don’t have to use a split ring marker. you can eyeballit too. so now i want to figure out how many stitches make up 4†using my yarn and needlecombination. so here we go: 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, and 13. so for me, using my yarn, thisneedle and my unique knitting tension made from my hands, i get 13 stitches equals 4.â€so i’m going to write this down. i’m going
to write down 13 stitches equals 4â€. so now let’s do a bit of math. we know that13 stitches equals 4.†well, what about 25â€? for me i know i want my cowl to be25â€, so how many stitches equals 25â€? if this sounds like middle school algebra,you’re right! i totally remember learning this in eighth grade. i’m going to get mycalculator out because i’m really bad at math. so what we’re going to do is figureout 4 times what equals 25. so i’m going to go 25 divided by 4 equals 6.25. so i knowthat if i multiply 4 by 6.25 then i get 25. so if you don’t believe me and you’rereally bad at math like i am, i’m going to double check. so 4 times 6.25 equals 25.perfect. so i’m going to do the same to
this side because whatever you do to one sideyou do to the other side. thank you mr. anderson. i totally remember that! so 13 times 6.25equals 81.25. so 81.25 is the number of stitches we need to cast on in order for our cowl tobe 25â€. now obviously we can’t cast on 0.25 stitches.that s kind of funky. so we need to either round up or round down. when we knit seedstitch in the round, we need to have an odd number of stitches, so i would cast on either81 or 83, which are odd numbers. so depending on how much yarn you have or how you’refeeling, you would round up or round down to an odd number. i’m feeling generous soi’ll cast on 83 stitches, and that will get me a little more than 25†and i’mhappy with that. so you can use this formula
to figure out how many stitches to cast onso that you can knit the cowl of your dreams with the yarn and needles that you have athand. so once your cowl or scarf is the length thatyou want it to be, then we’re ready to cast off. so we’re going to cast off in pattern.and you can do this whether you’re knitting on flat needles or in the round. so let’scontinue in our seed stitch pattern. here’s a knit stitch, so i’m going to purl intothat. our next stitch is a purl stitch so i’m going to knit into that purl stitch.so now we’ve got two stitches on our right needle and i’m going to take my left needle,go underneath that first stitch and bring it over the second stitch. now we’re goingto move on and purl our next stitch, which
is a knit stitch. i’ll bring my yarn upfront and purl that knit stitch as we do when we’re knitting seed stitch. so we’ve gotwo stitches on our right needle. i’ll bring my left needle underneath that first stitchand bring it over our second stitch. so we’re basically casting off, but we’re castingoff in pattern. here’s a purl stitch so we’ll knit that and then bring our secondstitch over our first stitch. when you’re casting off you want to keep your hand niceand loose. you don’t want a death grip on your yarn. you want your cast off edge tobe nice and loose. loosey goosey. so continue casting off in pattern until you have onestitch left on your needle. i’m going to knit my last stitch and go underneath thatsecond stitch and bring it over like this.
great. so now i have one stitch left on myneedle. i’m going to get my scissors out and leave a 7†or 8†tail and then cutoff. now i’m going to take my tail and bring it to the front of my needle like this. andthen i’m going to take that stitch that’s on my stitch and bring it over that tail endand pull my tail through. now my stitches are secure! our swatch is off our needles.so now you can weave in your ends and wear your cowl or scarf into the world and enjoyit. or if you want your cowl or scarf to be a little bit wider or longer we can do a wetblock to stretch it out. so if you find that your scarf or cowl isa little too narrow and you want it to be longer, taller or wider, then you can do thatby doing what’s called a wet block. what
that means is that you would take your scarfor cowl and dunk it into water, push out the water and then lay it flat to dry. and youcan use sewing pins to pin your scarf or cowl in place. now that’s fairly drastic. whenyou do a wet block you can reshape your entire scarf or cowl. you can stretch it out quitedramatically. for me, i don’t really want to do a huge wet block, and i’ll link toa video that shows you how to do a wet block where i wet block a sweater. for me, wheni knit up this cowl i did a very “light wet blockâ€. so, if you’re only lookingto gain an inch or two, then a light wet block is a good idea. so let’s get started. how i do what i calla “light wet block†is - i have some water
here, and i’ll lightly sprinkle my swatchon one side and then i flip it over and do the other side. then i stretch it out to thedimensions i want it to be, and then lay it flat dry. and that’s all there is to a wetblock, or a “light wet block.†so let’s do it together. take a towel and lay it downand put your knitting on top of it so your table or floor doesn’t get wet. i’ll takemy water here and lightly, kind of, drip it onto my project like that. so you can seeit’s staying on my yarn here. it’s not really absorbing, and that’s okay. i justwant to wet it a little bit. so i’m letting the water absorb and if i flip it over, ithas not seeped through the other side. so i’m going to wet the other side now. i don’twant it to be soaking wet. if i feel it, it
has soaked through a little bit. so maybei’ll put just a bit of water on here. so, just spreading the water around. this is kindof fun actually. [laughter] it’s not soaking wet. it’s just kind of damp. i need morewater because i’m working with bulky weight yarn. so here we go. now that my swatch iswet, i can stretch it out. so you can see that my swatch has actually evened out quitea bit. when we first started out, the corners weren’t that even. i just want to stretchthis out an inch or so, so i’m going to pull it like this. and that for me is enough.i can get half an inch on this swatch. so if you don’t want it to grow that much,you don’t have to stretch it out too much. you can see that it really is stretching asit’s wet. you can really manipulate the
fabric when it’s wet. i’m going to leaveit like this and then lay it to dry. that’s it. just leave it alone and by the next dayyour cowl or scarf will have dried in this shape. and then you can wear it out into theworld. pretty cool, right? so that is how you knit a scarf or cowl in seed stitch withwhatever yarn or needles you have on hand. thank you so much for watching! if this videohelped you out then consider subscribing to this channel for more knitting tips and tutorials.and hey! visit sheepandstitch.com to drool over yummy yarn, knitting kits and our everypopular pattern tutorials. okay, that’s it for me i’m davina of sheepandstitch.com.have a great day and happy knitting!