The Magical Self-Knitting Daybreak Scarf (2011 FO #21)

Today I woke up with the Cold From Hell. It's both of my nostrils have turned into gross snot-dispensing taps that can't be switched off. My nose is producing so much liquid that I'm worried that I might become dehydrated due to loss of fluid! I'm about to go to the shops to by some tablets and orange juice, but before I do I'd like to share with you one of my all-time favourite knitted pieces.

This was a magic scarf that effectively made itself - I knitted the whole thing while I was in hospital last year and whacked out on hardcore painkillers. I emerged from an opiate haze some time in September with a brand-new super warm super fantastic scarf and nary a complaint about long rows, the difficulty of maintaining a four-line pattern repeat when I had couldn't use words with more than four syllables*  and interminable 400-stitch cast offs. While I wouldn't recommend breaking a leg to anyone, a healing process that includes bonus scarves is definitely a positive.

The yarn is Jo Sharp Alpaca Silk Georgette and it is divine. The scarf is soft, warm and gorgeous to wear - so I wear it all the time. I love it.

Now one thing I wouldn't recommend after producing your magic scarf while high on drugs is attempting to make a matching hat without a pattern. I knit a swatch in the round, blocked it and then calculated the number of stitches using the formula gauge per centimetre x circumference of head in centimetres.

My calculations were wrong (please not the cat trying to get out of the frame with the crazy lady who has a knitted bag on her head. Lucy is totally too cool to be in this picture). The hat will be frogged and made into a comfy pair of bed socks and all matters of design and mathematics left to the professionals.

Daybreak scarf in Alpaca Silk Georgette = massive success.

* The drastic reduction of my vocabulary was one of my least favourite side effects of the drugs. When your business is words, every job you've ever had revolves around words and your self-image is largely centred on your ability to use words and use them well, losing that ability is a really scary and awful thing.