My Evolution as a Knitter, or, Garter Stitch Scarf Finished

Believe it or not, this scarf is the first project I even cast on. I would make a joke about it being the last one I cast off (and very well could have been) but that isn't true unless something happens to me or my hands after I type this.

It was a few years ago, four maybe, that I wanted to try to teach myself to knit. It so happened that my local Joann's was changing locations so I went in and bought some yarn, based solely on color, and needles to give it a shot.


After practicing casting on I tried knitting. It took some time before the movement felt right and I could go on with this scarf. To make it easy on myself I decided to only use the knit stitch on this one. Purling seemed too advanced for me at the time. I naively thought I could finish this scarf within a couple weeks max. Try four years, Katie.


I did eventually get bored with this one and set it aside repeatedly. I also chose to start buying natural, more expensive, fibers since I enjoy doing it. This yarn is a cheap acrylic and I wouldn't be caught dead even looking at it in the store right now. But at the time I didn't want to invest a lot of money in something I wasn't sure I would enjoy, or really understand. The needles I bought for this project are also not my preferred. They are the inexpensive aluminum ones and I know knit almost exclusively on bamboo.


So you may ask why I wanted to finish this scarf. Well mostly because I don't want to have any lingering projects around. It would have been a waste to throw it away and since it wasn't in a skein anymore, I didn't feel I could donate the yarn.


I am glad I did finish it though because it shows how my knitting has changed over the years. New knitters are notorious for being tight. The stitches are small and compact. For some, this doesn't change and others loosen up over time. It all comes down to speed, in my opinion. I knit more loosely when I knit faster, though I wouldn't consider myself to be a loose knitter.


I took quite a few photos of this simple scarf to show the changes in gauge over time. The compact stitches are from when I started the scarf. I knit slowly and pulled the yarn tightly around the needles. On the flip side, now I knit more loosely and with more speed.


Asthetically, I prefer the stitches from the beginning of the scarf when compared with the other end. Although, I do admit I didn't notice how different it was until I started photographing it and I noticed one end was wider than the other. The stitch count is the same throughout so the change in width is solely to do with gauge.

Will I even wear this scarf? Probably not. I do not like the feel of acrylic yarn and my love of the color is not enough to change that. I may not even keep it forever but I will hold on to it for now as a reminder where I started on my journey as a knitter.