Check out my Dad modelling a crocheted scarf!

Doesn’t he look like Sean Connery?

The scarf is a Christmas present for one of Hubby’s friends. I started work on it on 20 August and finished it while Dad was visiting me. I just had to rope in Dad to play model – that beard and suntanned skin is perfect for a winter accessory photo shoot.

Check out the “I’m staring into the Great Wide Yonder” pose:

And “I have to wear my sunglasses against the glare of the snow”:

Dad The model requested a mug so that he could “make the blog people think it’s very cold. Brrrrr.” No really, he said Brrrr out loud. Method modelling obviously works for him.

If I can drag you away from David Gandy-30-years-from-now, I’ll tell you about the scarf.

I was inspired by Jan Eaton’s chocolate box block from her 200 Crochet Blocks book . I used chocolate box for my livingroom couch cushions and they look really great. To my great surprise I turn the cushions so that chocolate box is at the front, more than the Roses & Daisies. Who would have thunk?

This scarf is basically just a row version of the chocolate box square. I thought I was very clever turning a square into a row. Little did I know that the stitch is an existing crochet stitch called Brick Stitch. I found this out when I bought Robyn Chachula’s Crochet Stitches Visual Encyclopedia. Right there on page 15 is my Manly Scarf sans the Sean Connery lookalike!  So much for originality. On the other hand, I was quite pleased to see that my handwritten filofax pattern looks almost identical to Robyn’s diagram for the stitch. Brownie point for me.

The nitty gritty of the scarf:

Pattern: Brick stitch as per my pattern below. For more accurate instructions than my handwritten scribble, see Crochet Stitches Visual Encyclopedia. (On Amazon you can “Look inside” the book and if you log into Amazon you’ll be able to see the full written and diagram instruction for this pattern.) The @ on the edges of my pattern tells me where I should put the stitch markers to indicate the top of the 3 chain turning chain. I know it seems a bit over the top, but whenever I’m doing anything with straight lines I rely heavily on my stitch markers to keep track of the top of my turning chains.

Hook: 4.5 mm. I know the photo above says 4mm, but once I started working on the scarf I felt that a 4.5 mm was better.

Yarn: I used seven colours varying from 100% acrylic, to an acrylic & wool mix, to 100% wool. They were:

Charcoal: Stylecraft Life DK

Claret: Stylecraft Special DK

Gray: Stylecraft Special DK

Black: Stylecraft Life DK

Turquoise: Schoppel-Wolle Admiral 6-fach left over from the Childhood Memories shawl

Silver: Stylecraft Special DK

Mocha: Stylecraft Special DK, left over from the Identity Crisis blanket

The tassels I made using my Finishing Techniques for Crochet book, but you can also get the instructions here. It’s extremely easy to do. Promise. Whenever the tassel is attached to a DC row, I used three strands, and for a SC row, I used two strands.

That’s it. One manly scarf as modelled by Dad.

Thanks for making the scarf look so great Dad, and for being such a great (role)model. ♥