I used the Red Heart Soft yarns in the official colors and size 7 needles. The scarf was both narrow (~5.5”) and on the shorter side (54”.) I reknit this and tweaked the charts to add more words and improve the spacing. Overall I added about 35 rows. The second time I knit this I used size 8 needles and the Red Heart Super Saver yarns with the revised charts, and my dimensions came out a lovely 6” x 60”. (And I even like the FO better with the Super Saver -- despite using larger needles, my FO seemed to be looser when I used the Soft. I like the tighter fabric with the Super Saver, but ymmv of course.)

My own design. This pattern utilizes two-image double-knitting, with text readable on both sides of the scarf. If it is a success I will post the chart and instructions.

10/11/11: Knitting finished and ends woven in. Just needs to be washed and perhaps a light steam-blocking. And pictures taken, of course. Before I post the pattern for downloading on Ravelry, I’m going to knit another, using size 8 needles. Size 7 made a beautiful scarf (especially the middle panel) but this one is narrow, just over 5”, at least before blocking, and about 54” long. I expect size 8 will bring to just about the right width and still be within length guidelines as well. Will make my decision as to needle recommendation and complete the pattern write-up after the second is knit.

10/10/11: Less than 25% more to go. I can’t wait to be done with the knitting, because it’s so fun to see each row appear -- it prompts me to knit one more row and I hate to put it down. My head is also swimming with ideas for my next project, although I am probably going to knit either this scarf or my first SO scarf again. (My first SO scarf came out wide, and my own athlete made me promise to knit him one anyway, so I think I’m going to give the first to him and knit another like it for donation to the games.)

10/6/11: Reached the half-way point. I’m absolutely loving how the scarf is turning out -- especially now that I’ve hit the middle section with the larger text on the RS. I have a hard time putting it down, because it is so fun to see the results of each row.

10/4/11: Because I’m still new to reading charts myself, I find my most frequent errors are reading the even rows from right-to-left before I catch myself and have to tink back to the beginning of the row. I haven’t done that too often, though. I’ve found lifelines to be my best friend -- I use them about every 5 rows. I’ve made use of my lifeline twice -- both times when I dropped a stitch and felt it easier to just rip back than to try to rescue my stitch.

The pattern has 2(4) solid background stitches on either side of the middle 5(10) stitches (dividing the main pattern into 3 lines of text, other than a middle section on the RS row) and I’ve found it very useful to have stitch-markers placed on either end of these 2(4) stitches on both sides. It makes reading the pattern easier and faster.

9/26/11: Cast On! I cast on 42 stitches to create a 21 stitch wide double-knit scarf.

9/26/11: Finished charting -- finally! I’ve been musing over this and a couple other ideas and finally settled on one. I spent the last week of evenings carefully planning and charting. To create a chart for two separate images, I first needed to create a chart for each side, inverse one of the sides, and combine into a fourth complete chart. I’m tired and cross-eyed just from remembering, lol. But I think the effort will be worth it. The hardest part is the charting, knitting it will be much easier, although I’ll probably assume a high difficulty rating due to the double-knitting and odd-looking charts that require close attention to detail. It’s not clear how accurate you’ve knit to pattern until a few rows later, so lifelines are advised. It will be interesting seeing this come to life on the needles as each row is knit up, as the chart itself looks like no discernible image. It’d be kind of fun to have someone try this without seeing a finished product.