I made this scarf after buying just one skein of a great sapphire blue superwash yarn for my dad, and realizing I probably needed a second skein to have enough for a warm scarf. Another skein of superwash merino wool to the rescue, this time a sort of periwinkle variegated color. But how to combine them in a way that would look nice on both sides and not be cumbersomely thick?

The answer was a stitch pattern I found called “Elm Seed” stitch. I’ve documented the pattern I used below. The pattern is made up of a checkerboard of 2×2 colors stockinette, but each with a yarn-over making the horizontal line across the middle. I made sure to be consistent about how I crossed my colors on the wrong side so that it would make a nice pattern there too.

Blue Elm Scarf

I used the solid darker blue as color 1, and the variegated lighter blue as color 2. Basically this pattern’s row looks like 3 sts of edge, 1 knit stitch that alternates color every two rows, then the alternating pattern across, then 1 knit stitch of the opposite color from the start, and then 3 sts of the original edge color.

1. Cast on 60 stitches, alternating color every two stitches.
2. Row 1 (WS): (color 1) p2, k1, (color 2) p1, *p2 with color 1, p2 with color 2; rep from *, (color 1) k2, p2
3. Row 2 (RS): (color 1) sl1 wyib, k1, p1, (color 1) k1, *k2 with color 2, k2 with color 1; rep from * to last st, (color 2) k1, (color 1) p1, k2
4. Row 3 (WS): (color 1) sl1 wyif, p1, k1, (color 2) k1, *YO with color 1, p2, pass YO over last 2 sts; rep from * with color 2; rep from first *, alternating colors to last st, (color 1) k1, k1, p2
5. Row 4: (color 1) sl1 wyib, k1, p1, (color 2) k1, *k2 with color 1, k2 with color 2; rep from * to last st, (color 1) K1, p1, k2
6. Row 5: (color 1) sl1 wyif, p1, k1, k1, *YO with color 2, p2, pass YO over last 2 sts; rep from * with color 1; rep from first *, alternating colors, to last st, (color 2) k1, (color 1) k1, p2

Here is my dad modeling handsomely for me post-Thanksgiving dinner. I had leftover of the variegated yarn (that I wasn’t using to do the border in) so I ended up crocheting it onto the end to give it some extra length.

I think it came out satisfactorily manly-looking and warm. I hear it is keeping him warm at things like Illini football games!