Knitting: 'Gorgeous' Hat and Scarf

When I wrote the post about my Lottie coat a couple of weeks ago I mentioned that I was knitting a new scarf to wear with it. Today, I'm back to show you that scarf (with another appearance from the Lottie coat), as well as a bonus extra project.

I'll admit, I had been hankering after some of this yarn since it was released last year, so the whole "I need a new scarf to go with my new coat" thing was a bit of an excuse for finally buying some rather than an actual necessity, but it does look great with the coat so it's all good.

Anyway, the yarn in question is Sirdar Gorgeous. It's an ultra super chunky wool and acrylic blend that knits up on 20mm needles. It's available in six colours - three neutrals and three "trendy brights", and predictably I picked possibly the brightest of the brights (it's called Love Bug).

When I bought the yarn I also bought this pattern leaflet which includes two different scarves, a snood and a hat. I chose to knit the purse stitch scarf; I think a yarn this chunky probably needs a relatively simple stitch pattern, which this one is but it's still a little bit more interesting than plain stocking stitch.

Unsurprisingly, given the size of the yarn and the needles, this was a really quick project. Considering the fact that I've mainly been knitting with 4 ply yarn on 3.25mm needles for the past few months, it felt quite comically large to start with and my Dad commented when he saw my needles that I could have just used some of his old cricket stumps instead! I soon got used to it though, and I knit the scarf within a day (and I wasn't knitting constantly for the whole day or anything!).

The pattern tells you just to carry on knitting the scarf until you've worked your way through two balls, but I thought that would end up being too long so I just stopped knitting when the scarf was long enough for my liking. That left me with over half a ball left, so I decided to start knitting the hat from the pattern leaflet to see if I had enough yarn left for that.

Thankfully there was plenty left and I had the hat finished in little more than an hour. I tend to prefer more beret type hats, but I think this is quite fun for a change, although I probably wouldn't wear the hat and the scarf together because the combination of the two of them is a bit overwhelming!

Both the hat and scarf are fun to wear - they're super soft and squishy, so feel lovely and snuggly. I did get a bit of fluff coming off the scarf when I wore it, but nothing too major.

As for the coat that prompted the scarf making, I've now added the extra snap fasteners to it which has definitely made it much better to wear. I'm still getting used to the style of the coat but I am growing to like it more. I really like the scarf with it though, so I'm glad I used it as an excuse to treat myself to some of the yarn!