Dad’s Musical Scarf

Now that Christmas is behind us and all surprises are out of the bag I can start discussing some crafts again.  I haven’t done that in a while for a few reasons. Firstly, because I didn’t do a single thing crafty for about a year.  I picked it up last year around x-mas and then wasn’t arsed with it again until the fall.  I am well and truly hooked again, but I deal in temporary obsessions, so we’ll see how long this lasts.

Anyway, one of my favorite Christmas projects was my father’s musical scarf.  He is a musician and I knew that something musical was the way to go for him this year.  I had marked a guitar scarf in my favorites on Ravelry because I knew I wanted to make it for him one day, so when I went back to it I saw that someone had combined the knitted Piano Hat pattern to make a combined scarf and I knew that’s what I wanted to do.  After a bit of trial and error I ended up doing two rows of single crochet for each single row of knitting on the piano hat pattern.  I decided that I would do one guitar section, then work the piano until it felt like it was time to do the guitar again and then continue from there.

Also, rather than doing the scarf in two panels and sewing it together as the pattern suggests, once I finished the piano section I just did the guitar pattern backwards, working it in one long scarf.  It just didn’t make sense to me to make two sections and sew it together when you could just continue on and continue the one piece. It didn’t seem to make much difference in the finished product.

I used Drops Merino Extra Fine yarn which I ordered from Hobbydoos.nl.  LOVE the yarn and loved the service from Hobbydoos (I have since ordered from them multiple times).  I really loved how they vacuum sealed the yarn in order to have it fit through the mail slot.  The yarn was so soft and only got better after washing and blocking.  I will definitely use it again.

In the end I think I probably could have done with making the piano section a little shorter. Once I had washed and blocked the scarf it seemed incredibly long, but there was no turning back then.  I just told myself that my dad could wrap it around himself a few more times during what has turned out to be an incredibly cold Canadian winter!

He doesn’t seem to mind.  He’s a shortie so as long as it’s not hanging down around his ankles, I figure we’re good… right, dad? :)

All in all I really enjoyed this project. It was my first time doing color work in this way, outside of the usual granny square type of color work.  It added a little extra challenge while making the guitar but was easy enough for me to pound out in time for Christmas.

I think at some point I will try doing it in reverse. Knitting the scarf and converting the guitar to knit rather than the piano to crochet, just for fun.