Border for knitted scarf

[Giulietta]

Is it possible to knit a scarf with the illusion or shadow technique, i.e. mainly in jersey with 2 different colors, and once the scarf is completed add a knitted or crocheted border running along each side of the scarf with a pretty effect, for instance a seed stitch border that will prevent the scarf edges from rolling? Where can I get suggestions for the border stitch? Thank you in advance for taking the time to answer my query. First, I thought I would knit the border with the scarf itself but I would like the border to be in a single color and I do not know if knitting the single color border while knitting the scarf body would be more complicated than adding the border on each side of the scarf after having completed the scarf pattern. Please let me know what you would choose.

[Jan in CA]

What is jersey?

You can knit a different color border along with the scarf, but it requires you do use intarsia. With intarsia you'd have an extra two skeins of the color along with the two design colors for the middle. It's not impossible, but it would be awkward and certainly not portable.

It is possible to knit a border after the fact by picking up stitches along the sides. With a scarf you'd probably want to pick them up one side at a time and knit although if you used a really long cable you could do it all at once and miter the corners.

There is a thread in the How-to Forum at the top called "why is my stockinette curling" or something like that and it gives suggestions for non curling borders such as seed stitch and garter.

All this being said I will say though that adding a border after doesn't always help as well as you'd hope. It tends to want to fold along on the picked up stitches. I'm not sure how to combat this.