Of all the
Dr. Who props, the most
memorable one is the scarf worn by
Tom Baker as the fourth doctor (1974 to 1981). This scarf is
huge and easily went from floor to neck, once around, and back down again to the ground on his 6'3" frame with about half a foot of scarf and the foot long tassels trailing on the ground on either side. On me (5'10"), it goes from middle of my calf up around my neck down to
my waist, up to my neck again and down to the other calf - it is quite
long.
By far, the Dr. Who scarf is a prized possession of any Dr. Who fan
- especially those who live in colder climates
and can actually wear the thing. To be authentic, the scarf should be made out of worsted wool and is quite warm (do not wear this in southern California or Texas).
This is the ideal project for a patient beginner to knitting because it uses only one type of stitch - the garter stitch. This stich is the simplest and most basic type of knitting - no knit one purl one, its just knit, knit, knit. Furthermore, there is no complex pattern to follow within the scarf - it is simply bands of color.
Yes, I (a guy) did make part of my own scarf - and I was knitting in high school none the less. It took me a significant amount of time to get through the first 52 rows of camel (60 total rows done) at which point I got bored. Upon handing it to my mother she was able to do the remaining 738 rows in the time it took me to do 60.
You will need:
- Size 10 knitting needles (that be 6mm for metric types)
- 8 skeins of wool in the following colors:
- 1 Dark Rust (rust)
- 1 Deep Tap Gold (gold / yellow)
- 1 Dark Oxford (gray)
- 1 Burgundy (purple)
- 1 Cinnamon (bronze)
- 1 Olive (green)
- 2 Camel (tan)
While it make take some searching to find the proper colors, the alternate
(and shorter) color names are listed in
parentheses.
Cast on 60 stitches in purple (this about a foot across) and knit rows
in the following order:
- 8 purple
- 52 tan
- 16 bronze
- 10 yellow
- 22 rust
- 8 purple
- 20 green
- 8 yellow
- 28 tan
- 14 rust
- 8 bronze
- 10 purple
- 42 green
- 8 yellow
- 16 gray
- 8 rust
- 52 tan
- 10 purple
- 12 green
- 8 yellow
- 18 rust
- 8 purple
- 38 bronze
- 10 tan
- 8 gray
- 40 rust
- 14 yellow
- 20 green
- 8 purple
- 42 tan
- 12 bronze
- 20 gray
- 8 rust
- 12 purple
- 6 tan
- 16 yellow
- 54 green
- 16 rust
- 12 gray
- 8 yellow
- 20 bronze
- 10 purple
- 12 gray
- 10 rust
- 16 yellow
Eight tassels are at each end of the scarf and made of 1 foot lengths of yarn with all 7 colors of yarn in each tassel.