Ode to the Scarf

I am the oldest of three girls. My younger sisters are 7 and 11 years younger than I am. This pretty much means that we were raised in three different times, and have three VERY different outlooks and personalities. My closest-in-age sister, Holly, just turned 25 this holiday season. Little does Holly know, I look to her for style inspiration. She is tiny, beautiful, and confident. She loves to dress to the occasion, whatever that occasion may be. This New Years Eve, she sent me a text that had no words.. Only this image.

Those are the shoes she wore downtown Grand Rapids on New Years Eve. I asked her “Won’t they be uncomfortable?” and in her sweetest exasperated voice she said “Of course they will.. but they are five inch heels. FIVE INCHES Kim.”

Facepalm.

As she has NO CLUE I’m posting about her, I won’t post pics of her in the blog just yet. But believe me YOU, she looked stunning. Did I mention she’s all of 5ft tall? Between the shoes and the hair (“The higher the hair, the closer to God, Kim..”) she was nearing 5’6″, and every bit of her looked classy.

So at this point, you’re wondering what all of this has to do with scarves. I’m getting there.

Almost every time I see Holly, she is wearing a classy scarf. She loops it around her neck in a carefree circle, with no tail showing. What’s amazing about it, is how it seems to classy up everything she wears. I’d never really given any thought to it until this Christmas, when my mom had gifted me a really pretty scarf that she picked up at Target.  When I opened it, I ‘oohed’ and ‘aaaahed’ about all the colors and how soft it was. I then threw it around my neck as I always would have, two tails hanging down. Holly leaned over to me and said “let me show you how I do it..”

She whipped those tailed up and around a few times, and voila! I suddenly went from a girl wearing a scarf, to a girl accessorizing. Don’t get me wrong, a scarf worn in a traditional way is way cute too, but something about wearing a scarf in a roundabout manner, looks super classy. This leads me to the Infinity (or Eternity) Scarf.

First off, I’m pretty sure there’s no reason to capitalize Infinity or Eternity in describing said scarves, but let’s do so anyway so as to pretend they are proper nouns.. as we’ll be looking oh-so-proper when wearing them.

After re-reading that sentence, I can only pray the grammar-police are nowhere around this blog, or that they are corrupt enough to accept bribes to look the other way. Anyways..

The Infinity Scarf is simply a large cowl. A scarf that’s tails are connected so that it’s in one large circle. Just throw that baby around your neck, and loop it around a second time, and voila- you are super chic. Here are some pics to prove my point:

Jessica Alba source: starstyleinc.com

Urban Outfitters $32

How about something knitted?

Urban Outfitters (no longer available)

Now, I am in somewhat of a penny-pinching season of my life. I also have some knitting skills. I thought to myself “but I could TOTALLY whip one of those up”. So I hit my LYS (local yarn store, for the non-fiber-obsessed), and grabbed some gorgeous chunky wool/silk/cashmere blend. I set to work on a very simple seed stitch piece on large needles, so that it would knit up quickly. Here’s where things got hairy.

If you are NOT a knitter, and NOT interested, then skim or skip this next paragraph.

First two hours in:

I cast on about 100 stitches, and got moving in a seed stitch. If you don’t knit, a seed stitch is a stitch that just switches between the two primary stitches in knitting. It’s a bit of a pain because if you knit American style, where you are throwing the yarn around the needle with your right hand, then it knits up really slowly. If you knit Continental style, where you do all your wrapping with your left hand, and it moves much quicker. The stitches are nice and fluffy, which is what I was going for.  Unfortunately, I was too lazy to do a gauge swatch over estimated my cast on just a tad, and ended up with a scarf that was four feet wide a bit bulky. So I frogged. This is knitter speak for “pulled it apart whilst cussing under my breath”. I cast on 46 stitches, which is knitting up right where I want it.

The yarn:

85% merino, 10% silk, 5% cashmere

So bumpy and smooshy

A progress picture:

Scarf in progress

I will be linking up a pattern for my knitted scarf (it’s super easy and totally suitable for beginners) as well as a pattern for a crochet version (thank you to my friend Cat!).  So check back in awhile for those..

My scarf isn’t yet finished, though I imagine it will be by tonight. I will post my finished pics then.

NON KNITTERS- START READING AGAIN.

If you are NOT a knitter, just google “Eternity Scarf” or “Infinity Scarf”. I would really, REALLY encourage you to look on Etsy. Personally, I much prefer to hand over my hard earned cashola to some creative entrepreneurial spirit out there that is a citizen of the Land of the Free. That’s just me though. I won’t go on about Fair Trade right now.

If you ARE a DIY kinda gal, I found this awesome tutorial on making a really stylish flannel scarf from the boyfriends jammie pants.

Click for the Tutorial

Finally: A note on wearing these oh-so-classy scarves..

I love the picture above of Brittany with the jeans, the heels, and the fitted shirt. I think the trick to this scarf look, is not to over do what you wear with it. The scarf itself is going to be pretty commanding, and if you pair it with a fluffy outfit (cardis or fluffy coat), then you need to go tiny somewhere else. If you aren’t a fan of your midsection, then wear a loose-fitting flowy tee, but some great jeans and heels. Oh, we will CERTAINLY be talking heels soon.  If you like a looser fit jean, than tighten up that shirt a bit and work those curves mama. You can wear the scarf un-twisted to cover a midsection you may not be in love with.

For a recap: If we were to have baby-steps in order to get sexy-fied, we would be on step two. Step one was… what? Do you remember? Did you comment so you might win a goodie? No?? Then go back and read my previous post!

Step one was PUT ON YOUR MASCARA! You have beautiful eyes, and they will COMMAND attention.

Step two will be: Try a scarf! They are trendy, comfy, warm, and versatile.  A scarf will dress up the plainest of tees and jeans, without any effort. You can find inexpensive scarves all over the place,  or make your own. So go get your scarf-sexy on.

My Christmas Scarf

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Tags: crochet, DIY, Etsy, Grand Rapids, knit, Scarf, sexy, style