This scarf is the very first thing I ever knit, not counting swatches. I only knew how to knit and purl, and I hadn’t yet accepted the concept of a non-reversible scarf, so I started noodling around with 1x1 ribbing and seed stitch. After swatching variations on diamond patterns, I went searching for yarn at my LYS. Ellen pointed me towards the red Malabrigo Worsted, and the rest is history.

Since the pattern I’d improvised made a slightly narrow scarf, I decided to make it super long so that I could wrap it twice. It comes to about eight feet, but I have to confess that most times I just wrap it once so that it is long and glamorous.

As part of the learning experience, and since I had some yarn left over, I designed a matching hat, very loosely based on a crocheted cloche pattern I had recently very loosely adapted. In making the scarf I had learned that seed stitch is wider than 1x1 ribbing, so I made the brim in seed stitch to encourage it to curve away from the body of the hat.