How many stitches should I have for knitting an adult male scarf?

Question

I'm using 10mm needles, the yarn is Homespun. I have 25 right now but it looks pretty wide.

Answer 1

Lion Brand Homespun (I'm assuming that's what you're using) is a very bulky yarn! 25 stitches would make a quite wide scarf with that yarn.

I like a scarf that's about 8 inches wide. You have to decide how wide you want YOUR scarf to be. Then it's really easy to figure out how many stitches to cast on. Here's how:

Take what you already have knit (if you haven't knit anything, cast on 15 or 20 stitches and knit at least 10 rows), lay it flat and measure it from side to side. Take the number of stitches in the sample piece (we could get all technical and call it a swatch, but we don't have to) the width of the sample. So, say your scarf is right now 12 inches wide and you have 25 stitches. 25 stitches divided by 12 inches is 2.0855. Well, all those decimals are annoying, so you can just round it to the nearest half inch. That means 2. That's your gauge - 2 stitches per inch.

Now comes the fun part: Multiply the number of stitches per inch by the width you WANT the scarf to have and the calculator will tell you how many stitches to cast on. Say you like my favorite width - 8 inches and using the example gauge from above and you would multiply 8 inches by 2 stitches per inch and it will tell you to cast on 16 stitches.

Easy, breezy, beautiful!

Answer 2

Check the gauge or tension guide on your ball of yarn. It will tell you what size needles to use and how many stitches it takes to make an inch. I think yours would be about three stiches for each inch
Try 18 stiches for a 6" wide scarf.
Hope this helps. Have fun knitting.

Answer 3

i am making one on tens right now that is 15 stitches wide, but it is a zig-zag drop stich. I think 15-18 would be best.