I was thrilled to be asked to make another garter stitch hat for my friend Sarah. But as well as a hat, she wanted a matching infinity scarf to be paired with it. Challenge on!

As much as I love garter stitch, you can have too much of a good thing, and I wanted to create something a little more interesting than a plain garter stitch hat and scarf set. Inspired by this pin on Pinterest back in 2014, I set about recreating a bulkier ‘half-and-half’ pattern myself. It’s a lovely mixture of basketweave and garter stitch, which look like they were made to be knitted together in my opinion. The original pin has me yearning for a mint green scarf now, but I have to push that thought to the back of my mind and get on with more pressing things!

If you haven’t already heard, black is the new black, and let’s face it, it’s so timeless and goes with pretty much everything. I wanted a really deep dark colour, so chose a 100% cotton yarn – Katia Cotton Cord in black (65). This yarn is wonderfully chunky, knits up so quickly and gives great stitch definition – I’d heartily recommend it!

The hat worked amazingly well in cotton cord. It’s less stretchy, but if you follow my original hat pattern you can’t go far wrong. If you’d prefer a looser fit, just cast on extra stitches at the beginning, making sure you still have an even number of stitches on your needles.

Infinity scarf pattern

Yarn: 3 skeins Katia Cotton Cord 100g in black (65)

Needles: 10mm (US15) straight needles

Gauge: 8-10 stitches 11-13 rows 4″, in garter stitch

Key:
K – knit
P – purl
K2TOG – knit two together
C4F – Slip 2 stitches onto cable needle and hold in front, knit 2 stitches from left needle, then knit 2 stitches from cable needle
C4B – Slip 2 stitches onto cable needle and hold in back, knit 2 stitches from left needle, then knit 2 stitches from cable needle

Cast on 26 stitches using long tail cast on method.

Basketweave section:

Row 1 – K2, *C4F (repeat until end of row)
Row 2 – P all stitches
Row 3 – *C4B, repeat until 2 stitches remain, K2
Row 4 – P all stitches

Repeat these four rows, until the piece measures 25 inches.

End after row 3 and proceed to the next section…

Garter stitch section:

Garter stitch knits a lot looser than basketweave stitch, so to keep the scarf a similar width all the way around the infinity scarf, we need to decrease the number of stitches by 6.

After your final row 4 of basketweave stitch do the following: (K1, K2TOG)* repeat 2 more times, knit all stitches until 9 stitches remain. (K1, K2TOG)* repeat 2 more times. 6 stitches decreased.

Knit all rows from this point on until piece measures 50″ from cast on edge. When finished, ending on a right side row, cast off knitwise. Graft together garter stitch edge to basketweave edge and weave in all ends.