Colin Baker scarf - You'll put your eye out!
How to make a scarf go really really fast: use bulky wool and scale down the dimensions to acknowledge that you're a foot shorter than Tom Baker.
How to make a scarf go really really slow again: teach yourself to knit plaid and polka dots from first principles.
I used tardis_tara's Season 12.5 pattern from wittylittleknitter.com. Then I figured out my stitch gauge and did a pile of gauge and scale conversions. I ended up knitting a pattern that was 35 stitches wide and mumblety rows long, with an even number of rows for each color.
Here's the important part if you want to play along at home. I looked at a lot of photo references, figured out which color combinations are in Six's outfit and in which proportions, and squinted at the scarf pattern until I had roughly the right proportions in often adjacent stripes. Here's the key. "Original" is the Cascade 220 colors suggested in the 12.5 pattern. My yarn is Lamb's Pride Bulky (Brown Sheep). It comes in sport weight in the same colors if you want to be knitting twice as long. :D
Original
Six
Lamb's Pride Bulky
Gold (yellow)
Green, <1 skein
Forest Shadows* M-210
Christmas Red Heather (orange)
Blue, 1 skein
Caribbean Waves M-192
Pumpkin Spice Heather (brown)
Purple, 2 skein
Clematis M-56
Sand (tan)
Red, 2 skein
Blue Blood Red M-80
Dark Plum (plum)
White, <1 skein
White Frost M-11
Yakima Heather (olive)
Yellow, 1 skein
Lemon Drop M-155
Gris (grey)
Pink, <1 skein
Strawberry Smoothie* VM-200
* Forest Shadows and Strawberry Smoothie are variegated colors. My first lot of Forest Shadows came out almost uniformly dark, which was lovely. Another lot I bought separately ranged almost to white, like my Strawberry Smoothie does. Your mileage may vary. I think the green is better solid or nearly solid, since I figured out how to knit plaid. I liked the pink with its own built in color excitement, since I didn't have any special patterns to knit with pink. If you prefer solid, Lotus Pink is the same shade.
Special patterns!
I did plaid, pinstripe, and polka dots in place of some of the large solid patches. Six had a red/violet plaid, a green/violet/white large-square gingham, yellow with dark pinstripes, and an aqua blue tie with white polka dots.
I could not find instructions ANYWHERE on how to knit plaid or polka dots in garter stitch, so I worked up my own. I'd love to save future knitters the effort (and show off my brilliance), but I have no idea where to post instructions so they'll be found. Please let me know if you have suggestions.
Each end has 14 tassels, 4 strands each, combinatorically unique because I am that geek. Don't use the 7 strands suggested in standard patterns; bulky wool is kind of ridiculous. Also there are cat pins, because there must be cat pins.
If you really want to see the gritty, here's the image file I hacked up with the color and pattern substitutions and the printable spreadsheet I used to note my progress (hide the greyed-out rows before printing), which tells me it was around 600 rows. Nifty.
Finished product (all these images link to big Flickr versions, by the way):
Could a mod please add a sixth doctor tag? I couldn't create new ones.
How to make a scarf go really really slow again: teach yourself to knit plaid and polka dots from first principles.
I used tardis_tara's Season 12.5 pattern from wittylittleknitter.com. Then I figured out my stitch gauge and did a pile of gauge and scale conversions. I ended up knitting a pattern that was 35 stitches wide and mumblety rows long, with an even number of rows for each color.
Here's the important part if you want to play along at home. I looked at a lot of photo references, figured out which color combinations are in Six's outfit and in which proportions, and squinted at the scarf pattern until I had roughly the right proportions in often adjacent stripes. Here's the key. "Original" is the Cascade 220 colors suggested in the 12.5 pattern. My yarn is Lamb's Pride Bulky (Brown Sheep). It comes in sport weight in the same colors if you want to be knitting twice as long. :D
Original
Six
Lamb's Pride Bulky
Gold (yellow)
Green, <1 skein
Forest Shadows* M-210
Christmas Red Heather (orange)
Blue, 1 skein
Caribbean Waves M-192
Pumpkin Spice Heather (brown)
Purple, 2 skein
Clematis M-56
Sand (tan)
Red, 2 skein
Blue Blood Red M-80
Dark Plum (plum)
White, <1 skein
White Frost M-11
Yakima Heather (olive)
Yellow, 1 skein
Lemon Drop M-155
Gris (grey)
Pink, <1 skein
Strawberry Smoothie* VM-200
* Forest Shadows and Strawberry Smoothie are variegated colors. My first lot of Forest Shadows came out almost uniformly dark, which was lovely. Another lot I bought separately ranged almost to white, like my Strawberry Smoothie does. Your mileage may vary. I think the green is better solid or nearly solid, since I figured out how to knit plaid. I liked the pink with its own built in color excitement, since I didn't have any special patterns to knit with pink. If you prefer solid, Lotus Pink is the same shade.
Special patterns!
I did plaid, pinstripe, and polka dots in place of some of the large solid patches. Six had a red/violet plaid, a green/violet/white large-square gingham, yellow with dark pinstripes, and an aqua blue tie with white polka dots.
I could not find instructions ANYWHERE on how to knit plaid or polka dots in garter stitch, so I worked up my own. I'd love to save future knitters the effort (and show off my brilliance), but I have no idea where to post instructions so they'll be found. Please let me know if you have suggestions.
Each end has 14 tassels, 4 strands each, combinatorically unique because I am that geek. Don't use the 7 strands suggested in standard patterns; bulky wool is kind of ridiculous. Also there are cat pins, because there must be cat pins.
If you really want to see the gritty, here's the image file I hacked up with the color and pattern substitutions and the printable spreadsheet I used to note my progress (hide the greyed-out rows before printing), which tells me it was around 600 rows. Nifty.
Finished product (all these images link to big Flickr versions, by the way):
Could a mod please add a sixth doctor tag? I couldn't create new ones.