Crocodile stitch is said to be one of the trickiest stitches to master. Trying out this repeat row tapered skinny scarf in a dragon scale like effect is a wonderful way to secure your knowledge of crocodile stitch, and the results are worth the effort.

Finished scarf measures 9 cm wide by 233cm long for a lush long skinny scarf look. Tension not important. A 5.5mm hook was used.

The scarf used 160g of yarn which is slightly more than one ball of the 150g balls of Panda Crypto. The pattern uses 2 balls of yarn. The best method of construction is to work one ball to the middle of the scarf, and then to start a fresh ball from the end to the meet in the middle. I ended up with a centre join, where 2 rows of three crocodile stitches are aligned and mattress stitched together. In this way you can adjust the length of the scarf from both sides, and also and have lovely scaly point on each end.

There a different ways to make crocodile stitch. I like the ‘V’ stitch grid method. In this method the first and all odd rows throughout the pattern form a backing grid of Double Crochet and Chain stitches. It is the odd rows that add to the length of the garment. The second and all even rows throughout the pattern make the front ‘scales’ of the crocodile stitch. These are formed by alternating between working 4 Front Post Double Crochet over first one side and then the second side of base ‘V’s, with a Single Crochet anchoring the scale base, and then using 2 Slip stitches to skip the next ‘V’ in the row. The even rows for most of the pattern, which have the scales, alternate between having either 2 scales or 3 scales in the rows.