Knitting your own Dr. Who scarf

Are you a fan of the classic Dr. Who, or do you have a Whovian in your life? At some point you may find yourself seriously contemplating knitting a Dr. Who scarf. I salute every knitter who has cranked out twelve feet of garter stitch in the name of fandom.

When planning a Dr. Who scarf, the first question you have to ask is, which one? Tom Baker wore several different models during his tenure as The Doctor, and each one has its own color specs. There are also several minor variations even in between models, as the original scarf had a stunt double which later became part of another scarf. Not to mention the scarf was repeatedly repaired and changed slightly due to wear and tear on the prop.

Luckily for knitters everywhere, hard-core Dr. Who fans have deconstructed and analyzed every aspect of the various Dr. Who scarves, including all of the variations, and put together recommendations based on their findings. There is still quite a lot of ongoing debate about some of the minutia of the patterns and the yarns recommendations. But I dare say these fan-created patterns will satisfy just about any Dr. Who fan.

You may be tempted to knit the scarf in the round, particularly if you have a knitting machine that can crank out stockinette at a rapid fire pace. But as a somewhat pedantic science fiction fan and knitting purist, I urge you to reconsider. The original scarf is in garter stitch, and taking the time to knit your Dr. Who scarf in proper garter stitch is the kind of attention to detail that makes a project really stand out from the pack.

(Incidentally, if you have a blog and want to display a progress tracker for your Dr. Who scarf, check out the Scarf-O-Matic! Nice work - I doff my red fez in respect.)

Image courtesy Flickr/Plashing Vole