DIY Circle Snap Scarf

I’ve mentioned this DIY circle snap scarf a couple times, and in the last month I made three different versions out of three different knit fabrics.

It is really easy to make one of there, since there are only two steps: sew fabric into a large rectangle, and attach snaps. That’s really it, although here are few more details…

I started with a 1.5-yard cut of 60″ wide knit fabric, and folded it in half right sides together to end up with a 60″ x 27″ rectangle. I sewed around the 3 open edges, left ~5″ unsewn on one side in order to turn the whole thing right-side-out, and then hand-stitched that opening closed. I attached snaps to each short end so that the scarf can be worn open, closed in a circle, or somewhere in between.

For the first one, I bought some black and white streaked slub knit (93% polyester, 7% rayon). The feel of this fabric is really great…but man, it was a pain to work with. It is very stretchy, and I had a really hard time getting it lined up to cut evenly and keeping it from curling at the edges.

I don’t have a lot of experience with knits so that’s certainly a huge contributing factor. Although I got close to the desired rectangle, one of the short ends is still slightly longer than the other…so I just decided it was good enough, and went with it. I attached white snap tape (because Joann’s didn’t have black and I was impatient) to either end to serve as the fastener.

Overall it was ok, but I knew I could do better.

For scarf #2, I bought some blue “performance knit” from Joann’s on Black Friday. (That’s the one you see in these photos.) It’s 92% polyester, 8% spandex and feels a lot like what you would use for fancy athletic apparel — cool, smooth and slick. I made the scarf itself the same way but instead of snap tape, I used actual snaps for this one (attached using this tool and a hammer). I found this knit a lot easier to work with and comfortable to wear, although it wasn’t quite as “snuggly” as the slub knit.

Finally for scarf #3, I used a gray knit with a silver zig zag foil print from Joann’s. It was 70% polyester, 30% rayon, felt soft and was only a little stretchy. It was also easier to work with like the blue performance knit.

I also bought something classified as a “classic” knit on Black Friday that’s 70% rayon, 28% polyester, and 2% spandex. It’s fairly heavy, more like something you’d see for pants as opposed to a t-shirt — and also reversible! Because of its thickness, I want to make one more scarf and try a different construction tactic by leaving it in a single layer edged with a rolled hem. We’ll see if I have time for that later this week.

I kept the first black (shoddily made) scarf, gave the blue one to my sister, and the gray one to my sister-in-law. And since I made 3 of them, it should be obvious that it was a nice, easy project.