Star Stitch Scarf

            I am so excited to share this project with you!  I finished it weeks ago, but it has been a busy month and I’m just now getting around to typing this.

            My little man is 4 years old right now.  He is creative and funny, with a huge heart, and is always happy.  He has many loves-- Lightening McQueen, Thomas the Train, dinosaurs, trucks, puzzles, books, blocks, and loves music and art.  At the moment his favorite colors (yes, colors because picking just one is too hard right now lol) are red, blue, orange and white.  
            Each Christmas (so far) I've been able to make my children at least one crocheted item a piece.  As it approached in 2013, I began to ask him what he would like me to make.  Through many conversations, he finally decided upon a scarf, which was great because I had never made him one.  I ended up with too many projects and didn’t get around to the scarf before Christmas, but a lot of that was due to my search for the perfect yarn.  There are many beautiful variegated yarns out there, but so far, I have not found one that uses all of those colors, without plenty of other colors that I didn’t want. 

            I went back to my little man and tried to get a clear choice on what color he wanted…and hoped that he might even choose a single color.  Instead, after much talk he told me, “Mommy, I just want ALL the colors.”  How can you refuse that request?  I finally decided upon Red Heart yarn color: Heartfelt.  It includes Blue, Light Blue, Red, Light Green, and Purple.  I really fell in love with it and hoped it would please him. 

            Then I had to choose what stitch I wanted to use.  I didn’t have a lot of luck finding a free crochet pattern that I liked.  Many were just too “fancy” for a boy in my opinion, but some, just not special enough.  I decided to do my own thing and choose a stitch I thought would display the yarn well.  Opinions vary on whether a simple stitch shows off a more complicated yarn best or vice versa.  I knew that I wanted it to be special, and different, and in the moment I began the project I was tired of the same basic stitches.  You ever get to that point?  When you just need to make something that strays from your usual bag of tricks?

            I pulled out a book my mom found at a yard sale.  One that I had completely forgotten about until I uncovered it in our second move last year (you can read more about my family’s relocation's in the post Christmas Tree 2013).  Mom is always finding interesting things, and I especially love it when she comes across yarn or books such as this.  She has found several older needlework books that I think are neat, for lack of a better word.  The book I referenced for this scarf is Aunt Ellen’s How-To Book on Needlework, Copyright, 1954, by Modern Handcraft, Inc.  Did you catch the 1954 part?  

            This book is 60 years old, and in great shape for its age.  Makes me wonder how many other women have sat with this book in hand, trying to learn the needle arts.  The book has turned out to be a great little resource.  It contains how-to’s for Crochet, Knitting, Tatting, Netting, Embroidery Stitches, Smocking, Huck Weaving (had not a clue what that was until I Googled it; found some lovely examples) Needlepoint, Rug Making, Hemstitching, and some other miscellaneous skills.  Now that I’m listing all of this out I realize it’s ridiculous that I haven’t used it more, and mastered all of these needle skills.  That would be a good goal to add to my list this year. 

            With my handy Aunt Ellen’s How-To Book on Needlework, I taught myself the crochet Star Stitch.  Turns out there aren’t many patterns that include this beautiful stitch…at least not that many that I could find.  You’ll find it is a pattern that definitely has a “right side” and the wrong side is not that appealing.  However, I LOVE this stitch.  Even though I was not able to find many patterns using the Star Stitch (at least not in comparison to patterns that include basic stitches) there are some good tutorials out there.  Finally, I did find a pattern using the Star Stitch in a scarf, that I liked here: Free Pattern Star Stitch Scarf

            I used a size K needle, and it took me around 47 rows of Star Stitch to achieve the length I wanted.  It takes Row 1 and Row 2 of the pattern to complete one set of the Star Stitch, and that’s how I counted to 47.  If you want to count actual rows it would be 94 rows.  It comes down to his knees, which it what I wanted.  He’ll have room to grow into it.  Isn’t it pretty?

           One of the other things I really loved about using this stitch for a scarf was that it works up thicker than other stitches, so you don't have to double it when wearing it unless you just prefer that.  I'm able to just crisscross it in front of my son's chest and know that he's covered well.  I'm in the process of making another scarf using double-crochet and it is so much thinner.  Another thing you should know--it seems this stitch uses a lot of yarn.  This scarf is about 53" and it used almost the entire skein.  Close up of the stitch work:

            The big question is did he like it?  He loved it!  He seemed happy with it…although he did make a comment about it not having all his favorite colors in it.  ::sigh::  So it is back to the drawing board, to create something he and I both can live with that will have ALL his colors.  For now, he is enjoying his scarf and seems to be proud of it every time he puts it on, which blesses this momma’s heart.