Spaghetti and Meatball Knit Scarf

A few years ago, I saw a pizza scarf that I thought was pretty cool, but then I thought, I prefer spaghetti. So, I decided I needed to make a spaghetti and meatball scarf. This project sat on the back-burner for about two years and this year I, finally, decided to make it!

When I set out to make this scarf, my goal was to make a scarf that, when you wore it, it looked like you were simply wearing spaghetti, and at the same time, if you set it down, I wanted it to look like a pile of spaghetti. With that in mind, I started knitting...

All pictures of me wearing the scarf were taken by the amazingly talented photographer audreyobscura .

To try to make this easier, I'm going to list everything you need now and then break it out at the beginning of each step so you know what you need to do that step.

Supplies:

• Spaghetti colored yarns - Light Yellow (or tan-ish) and Red
• Meatball colored yarns - same Red as before and Brown
• Size 6 (4mm) Double Pointed Knitting Needles - or circular needles | smaller needles will result in thinner noodles and larger needles will give you fatter noodles
• Cardboard and pencil - for making Pom Pom Meatballs
• Yarn Needles - I prefer the metal needles over the plastic ones | I used three total, and I'll explain that later, but you can just use 1
• Scissors
• Old hair brush - for making your pom poms fluffy
• [Optional] French Knitter - if you don't want to knit the noodles with double pointed needles

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Supplies Needed:

• Yellow and Red yarn - for noodles
• 2 Double pointed needles

You could use an i-cord type knitting machine to make the noodles. I haven't tried this, but I don't see why it couldn't work. fiberartsbydenisecarter also suggests finger weaving, which could also work, but I can't confirm it. If someone tries another method to knit the noodles, I would love to hear about it!

For the noodles, I knit I-cords. I might have done them a little different than normal.

1. Cast on 3
2. Slide stitches to the other end of your needle so the working yarn is away from the point of the needle you are using (Picture 3)
3. Knit across
4. Repeat 2 and 3 until the noodle is as long as you want it.
5. Cast off

I would suggest you try the noodle on in the way you would wear the scarf to determine when it is long enough. I think my scarf as a whole ended up a bit shorter than I would like, but for references:

• My shortest noodle = 50"
• My longest noodle = 68.5"

You can knit however many noodles of each color as you would like, but I just went until I was happy and I ended up with:

• 10 Yellow Noodles
• 6 Red Noodles

Supplies Needed:

• Yarn Needle

After you finish knitting all of your noodles (or you can do this as you go) you need to hide the yarn at the end of the noodles. For me, the starting end was fairly rounded, so I just hid the yarn within the noodle and then trimmed off the excess.

The end of the noodle was a little odd shaped, so I took the yarn and sort of sewed the end of the noodle together so it was more closed up, and then hid the yarn and cut off the excess.

Supplies Needed:

• Yarn - I used yellow
• Yarn Needle

Okay, time to sew all your noodles together. My goal here was to sew it up so it wasn't very obvious that these noodles were sewn together. I wanted it to look like they were just hanging around my neck.

Where to Sew

To start, you have to decide where you want to sew them, and this will be determined by how you are going to wear the scarf.

I would suggest you tie all the noodles together in the middle first so that they don't move around so much. I made it so all the noodles were even, but you really don't have to, no one will notice if they aren't (unless one noodle really, really hangs down).

In the second image, I'm showing how I plan on wearing it: with it wrapped once around my neck and the ends hanging down evenly from both sides (you can see where I've tied them together in the middle).

I decided to sew the noodles together in two spots, at the point where the scarf crosses in the back. So I put the scarf on backwards so I could easily get to the points I wanted to sew. Then I just took a piece of yarn and tied it around each side where I wanted to sew the noodles together (4th picture).

After I took it off, I did mess around with the noodles a little so everything laid pretty smoothly/flat.

Time to Sew

I untied my piece of yarn so I could sew the noodles and then just laid down pieces of yarn to try to keep myself organized.

1. I don't know if there is a "best" way to do this, but I started by just tying a piece of yarn to one of the noodles (since most of the noodles were yellow I used yellow yarn, but clear string would also work).
2. Next, I slipped the needle through the next noodle I wanted to tie on.
3. Pull the noodles as close together as you can.
4. Do a basic yarn over knot.
5. Repeat 3 and 4 until you've tied all the noodles together. I just kept grabbing the noodle that is closest and tying that one next.
6. Every 3 or 4 noodles, I would bring my noodle through a join between some previous noodles, so that it wasn't just a line of noodles being tied together, I wanted to make sure they clumped a bit.
7. Make sure you clump the noodles al together at the end and knot it so it doesn't all fall apart.
8. Hide the ends inside your noodles and trim the excess.

I'm not a good video taker at all, but I tried to do a video of me tying together some of the noodles to give you an idea of what I did. The yarn became unthreaded at one point, sorry. The video isn't good so I didn't bother editing it.

Supplies Needed:

• Yarn - I used a dark brown and red for mine
• Cardboard - for making your stencil
• Objects to trace to make your stencil
• Scissors
• Brush - for combing your pom pom and making it fluffy

Time to make your meatball pom poms. I posted an Instructable that shows you exactly how to make a pom pom.

From that Instructable, I am using the techniques where I use two colors, and brush the pom pom to make it fluffier.

My pom poms are about 1 1/2" in diameter. Make yours whatever size you want. I was trying to make my proportionate to the noodle sizes.

I made 20 pom poms so I would have 10 for each side of my scarf.

I decided to use the yarn from the pom poms to sew them onto the scarf, so I left the tying yarn long and did not trim them off yet.

Supplies Needed:

• Meatballs and spaghetti scarf
• Yarn needles - I used 3, but you can do this with just one if you want or need to
• Scissors

Before you can attach your meatballs, you have to decide where you are going to put them.

I did this by wearing the scarf and then just tying the meatballs on. I moved them around until I liked where they were. I decided I didn't want any where the scarf wraps around my neck, but you can put yours all over the scarf if you would like. Originally, I was going to put them all at the ends, but after conferring with jessratfink , I decided I did not like it that way and put them all over the noodles and not just at the ends. Also, I was going to attach them to just the red noodles, but ended up going with another of Jessy's suggestions and actually only connected them to the yellow noodles, and I only connected one meatball to each noodle (10 yellow noodles = 10 meatballs per side).

I did put some meatballs on the ends and this is how I did it:

• I threaded a needle on each end of the yarn on the meatballs, just so I could sew them on together, but you can do these one at a time.
• Going close to the end of the noodle, thread your ends through going each way.
• Tighten
• Take each end and go through each of the other two sides to get it more firmly attached, but instead of going out the other side of the noodle, bring it down through the end of the noodle and through the meatball (Picture 6).
• Bring your yarn out the end of the meatball (Picture 7).
• You can just trim the ends now, but I first tied one knot just to hold the ends in place.
• Trim the ends so they match up with the rest of the meatball.
• Comb the meatball again if you'd like to try to hide the ends in better, but they should blend in well with the rest of the meatball.

Supplies Needed:

• Meatballs and spaghetti scarf
• Yarn needles - I used 3, but you can do this with just one if you want or need to
• Scissors

This is where I used the third needle. I had to untie the meatball before sewing and to keep track of where I wanted it, I just stuck a needle through the noodle.

• Thread your needles on the ends of your meatball yarn pieces.
• Go about halfway through the noodle and sew through it (Pictures 4 and 5).
• Take one needle and go through the top of the noodle and do the opposite with the other noodle (Picture 6).
• Sew your needles through the meatball (like before) and come out the other end.
• Tie a knot and trim off the ends of the yarn even with the meatball.

Don't eat it.