The Sammhain scarf: a granny scarf for cold autumn days

I’ve had a hankering to make some crochet wearables for a while now. I love making crochet bags and I’ve dabbled with crochet fingerless mittens but I want to be able to do more. Having never been much of a knitter its taking me a bit of time to work out how garments are made and fitted but I’m astounded at all the possibilities already.

But before I rush in with something more complicated I thought I would start a crochet scarf. I love the retro fashions on the high street at the moment and the colours at this time of year are among my absolute favourites. Back at the beginning of October, the idea of an autumn/Halloween inspired retro granny scarf seemed perfect.

You can buy the pattern for this scarf for £1 plus the VAT that applies in your country using this button:

The scarf is long and wide, just right for wrapping up in cold weather and the rich, autumn shades of Stylecraft Life DK make it a pleasure to look at too. Stylecraft Life is 25% wool and 75% acrylic and has a completely separate colour palette to the 100% acrylic Stylecraft Special DK. I loved how the yellow/green of Zing contrasted so well with the rich purple of Cranberry and the gorgeous falling leaf tones of Copper and Cognac. I used these four colours in a retro style granny square and then added a border of Claret, a deep maroon.

The retro granny square motif used to make the scarf is inspired by my original retro granny square but its very different. I wanted to add in lots of cluster stitches to give the scarf extra warmth and I used a larger hook size than the yarn specifies so that the finished scarf would have a soft, flowing drape.

All these elements come together to form a really useful scarf. The wool content and the construction trap lots of air within the crochet, making it feel light and comfortable while being extremely toasty and warm.

Why the Sammhain scarf?

While I was working out the design and making the scarf I was watching the new series about Celts and Celtic history on TV. The one with Neil Oliver and Alice Roberts. It was fascinating and a little known part of English or European history. The programme was really well done and I loved seeing the intricate jewellery designs that were made by the early Celts.On a whim I decided to look up the Celtic word for Halloween – Samhain – only I seem to have spelled it wrong, so its become the Sammhain crochet scarf.

In Celtic stories, Halloween and early November was a special and mystical time and its always felt that way to me – perhaps because my birthday is on November 8th.

Anyway, the Sammhain scarf was finished it just in the nick of time and I was able to load it up on Ravelry as a published pattern on October 31st.

Why is it a paid pattern?

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking recently about whether to spend more of my time on Crafternoon Treats and a bit less time on my day job as a medical writer. I would love to do this and make a living out of doing crochet (wouldn’t we all) but I realise that its very tough. So, as an experiment, I’ll be putting some of my patterns on Ravelry and charging a small fee to see how it goes. I’m also working on a very small Etsy shop and plan to get it open and stocked with a few items in the next couple of weeks.

I though I better start small, so The Sammhain scarf pattern is just £1 and for that you get the pdf for both the UK and US version. Both 8-page PDFs include lots of photographs and some tutorial steps and you can always contact me with any queries on Facebook, Instagram or via my blog.

Some of my patterns will continue to be free but I am going to try to put all of the patterns I have done over the last year onto Ravelry, more for ease of access than anything else. The Ravelry system also shows how many downloads each pattern has had, whether its free or paid, so I can get a much better idea about which of the patterns are proving the most popular.

I’d love to know what you think? Do you use Ravelry to buy patterns? What kind of patterns do you think are good value?

Even if you are not a member of Ravelry you can still buy the pattern for £1 plus the VAT that applies in your country using this button: