What to do with some gorgeous wool given to me by my lovely sister-in-law…..

A chunky cream yarn studded with flecks of gold. It was crying out for a project, but what?

The trouble was, that whatever I crocheted didn’t seem to work, normally because I kept loosing the gold details in the twists of the stitches. Pompoms (!!!) worked pretty well, but after experimenting with a few, I redundantly put the yarn to one side hoping that inspiration would strike sometime in the future.

…..It took a while! But when I was looking for ideas for my crochet class’ first project I came across the chain stitch scarf. I teach crochet part-time at an adults education college and for each new stitch or technique mastered, I try to find a project/pattern to give the students.

During the very first class I have to keep the projects simple because after housekeeping, student paperwork and learning how to hold the yarn and hook we generally only get to chain stitch. Usually we work a simple necklace made up of a long length of chain stitches and embellished with lace flowers, and a bracelet made out of three lengths of chain braided together. However, this year we also made a chain scarf.

A chain scarf is basically make from a long, long line of chain stitches.

Once you have worked enough chain stitches (and don’t be afraid to use up a whole ball of yarn!), you fold the length of chain in half again and again, until it is the right length to be worn as a scarf. By holding on to the ends and twisting slightly, you can wrap the scarf around your neck and fix it by placing one end through the loop created at the other end.

I made an example of the scarf for the students to see.  I decided that it would be worth giving the cream and gold yarn another go and the simple chain stitch was great, as although not too clear in the photos, the all important gold detail was retained. Yipee! x

A little tip, when you are happy with the length of scarf, to stop it unravelling every time you take it off either tie it across the middle somewhere discretely with a length of the same coloured yarn or incorporate a knot into your scarf design.

(Thanks go to Flo for her help with the photos!)