This is a great scarf for men, but also looks wonderful on women. You can have a lot of fun with the colours, or stick to a neutral palette with a strand or two of colour to make it interesting. It knits up super fast because of the bulky yarn and no purl stitches! You avoid purl stitches in the linen stitch section by cutting the yarn and only knitting right side rows, and the double stockinette stitch sections have no purl stitches.

It’s knit with a bulky weight yarn, but if you don’t have any lying around or can’t find any in a colour you like you can knit two or three strands of fingering or sock weight yarn together. I recommend this anyway because it gives a really cool effect and makes it easy to vary the colours. You can just as easily use all one colour, too, though.

This is a great way to knit a super soft scarf that won’t break the bank — you can buy two or three balls of super cheap wool yarn, and then just one small ball of a cashmere or silk blend to carry along with the wool yarns and give the scarf a lux feel without having to buy a whole scarf’s worth. It’s perfect for using up mini left over balls of yarn as well.

You need a long circular needle for this, although it isn’t knit in the round, because you cut the yarn and slide the stitches back across the needle after each linen stitch row so that you only knit in one direction for the linen stitch section. In the linen stitch sections you are always knitting a right side row, and the cut yarn gets tied together at the ends to make the fringe. There are also two sections knit in double stockinette stitch (it looks like stockinette stitch on both sides of the fabric), which also do not involve any purl stitches.