I designed this colorful scarf for a rainbow-loving little girl. Not only does it contain (almost) all the colors of the rainbow,1 but if draped around the neck and left to hang down in front it actually looks like a rainbow, or at least like a child often draws one (a tall arch).
This pattern is 100% garter stitch and thus very easy (and a perfect project for a beginning knitter). And if you choose to add fringe, as I did, there are no ends to weave in–each tail becomes part of the fringe. If you’re not a fan of fringe, you can forego it and there’s just minimal finishing work.
If rainbows aren’t your thing but you’d like to make a quick, easy, and colorful scarf, this pattern can still work for you: you can change the order of the colors, use entirely different colors more suited to your taste, or pick six shades of your favorite color and create a beautiful ombré scarf.
For those of you wanting more color in your life (or at least in your wardrobe), here’s my Rainbow Scarf pattern:
- I chose to make a “simplified” rainbow and left out indigo, which is really just a combination of blue and purple. And since this scarf was for a young child, I suspected the indigo wouldn’t be missed given that most kids first learn rainbows not as Roy G. Biv, but as red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple. As I typed these colors, through my head played the song my daughter was taught in kindergarten to memorize the order of a rainbow’s colors…and which she sang every time she saw a rainbow…and we have a rainbow maker hanging in one of our windows…you see where this is going, and why I immediately heard that song in my head. [↩]