Ever since I taught myself to crochet back in 2014, most of my crochet projects have been small items that are only really good for children to play with or as a means of decoration. I did always intend to make myself something that I could wear with my new found skill though, and when some of my friends clubbed together to buy me some vouchers from a knitting shop for my 40th birthday I knew exactly what I was going to use the money for. When I next had some spare time I headed to the shop (I Knit London) and spent a happy hour or so choosing some lovely yarn to make myself a scarf with. I'm afraid I can't tell you what the yarn is called, as I lost the details long ago, but it is a cashmere blend, with some lovely subtle sparkly bits, and I had to wind it myself in the shop. Look how beautiful it is:
I also had a master plan for the pattern I wanted to use for my scarf. I have been following the Attic24 blog for several years now and love the neat ripple pattern that Lucy uses for blankets. I had even started a ripple blanket, but as I am such a slow crocheter it was (and still is) languishing in my box of works in progress. After a couple of false starts, I managed to adapt the pattern to the right row length, and during the first couple of months after starting the scarf , I proudly took photos of myself making good progress on the rather lovely undulating rows. My best times to crochet or knit are on the sofa in front of the tv, or on kid-free train journeys. Hence most pictures of my works in progress have either pyjamas or coffee in the background:
Then life got in the way, and before I knew it two years had passed and I was still only halfway through the scarf. One of the things that I vowed to do when I embarked on my career break was to finish the various knitting/crochet/crafting projects that I had on the go. The first thing I finished was a scarf for the 4 yo, and the next thing I finished was my ripple scarf.
It had been so long since I had worked on it that I had to relearn the pattern all over again. I then spent quite a lot of time working out which colour combinations to do next, using my own "random within repeating" colour scheme. My natural instinct would have been to pick an order of the 6 colours that I liked and then crochet them in a repeating pattern, but I wanted this scarf to look more random than that. However, I didn't want to end up using one colour more than any other one, so I devised my own way of achieving this. Each time I finish 6 rows I worked out what the next 6 colours will be, then photographed the balls of yarn in the order I had chosen, and followed that colour scheme until I had completed those rows. Here is one of the reminder photos that I used:
It became harder to work out which order to put the colours in towards the end, and if I ever do another project like this I think I will take the time to figure out the colour order for the whole item before I start. With the help of a few more train journeys I made good progress on the scarf this time around. I must say though that the appearance of my beloved orange crochet hook is not brilliant after really not that much use. Look how dirty it is in comparison to the earlier photo:
Within a few weeks of restarting the scarf I had got to the dreaded "sewing in the ends" point:
I must confess that I have a secret weapon here though - my partner inexplicably likes sewing in ends, and will happily take any of my finished pieces of crochet and knitting and sew all the ends in for me (and yes, I know how lucky I am!)
So now, more than 2 years after buying my yarn, I have a beautiful homemade scarf all of my own.
Every time I have worn it I have received at least one comment as to how lovely it looks, and that alone makes all the time I spent making it worthwhile. Even though Spring is just around the corner I am still wearing it on some days, although I'm not entirely sure that it doesn't clash with my current hair colour:
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