Aunty Shabby: A scarf tale

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I have come to realise that apart from a baby blanket and my sad softie, Blackie, I haven't featured much of my other craft, particularly my handbags or other knitted items. The main reason for this is that any photos I have of stuff I have made pre-about December 2007 were taken with a manual camera and are not particularly great shots anyway. Without a scanner it is also a bit hard to show them to you! I also don't have much current stock, most things having been gifted, sold or so overused by me or a member of my family, that they are in too decrepit a state to be viewed! I probably should at least take photos of some of the stuff I do have - this is on to my to do list!

I also need to make more stuff. Over the past few months I have been rather slow in my craft endeavours, either stalling on several projects, such as the aforementioned baby blanket, or not making anything. This is also on my to do list!

One thing which I can show you, and which is the subject of the rest of this post, is a scarf that has rather unwittingly become a bit of a star! After purchasing this wool on one of my many (although these days less frequent) fabric/wool shopping trips with greenolive, I had stowed it with the rest of my wool stash, vowing to use it soon. It had then been all but forgotten, until a few months ago I went foraging for some interesting or slubby type wool to make some more of my finger knitted scarfs. I have had some success with this technique, initially making myself a finger knitted scarf about 2 and a half years ago. This is perhaps one of my favourite scarves, ( I will write a post about it one day) receiving many compliments each time I wear it, and is in fact THE SCARF which lead to me making a scarf for Stila Cosmetics' Global Artistry Director last year (hi Shawn if you are reading this in San Francisco)! I also had a local boutique interested in this design, so resolved to make some more, in a range of colours and textures. This is where this scarf comes in!

I had originally made it to see if the wool would work using this technique - it seemed OK, but perhaps a little lighter and less luxurious than the others. Once made, it joined my very small stockpile of items to be labelled, shown off and hopefully sold! By chance in early January, a friend now living in London, who was back home for Christmas, was at my house having breakfast (buttermilk pancakes, yum) and telling me that he was to catch up with a mutual friend for a holiday in Mexico before he went back to the UK. I asked him to take a late Christmas present for our friend (a scarf, what else?), as I hadn't yet sent it to him in Philadelphia. Knowing it would be an Aunty Shabby original, he then asked "how is your handbag business was going?" This is a question I have been asked many times over the years by friends; I think initially out of bemusement that their once ambitious lawyer friend had turned to craft and handbag making and then later, out of politeness, especially when I had usually replied "not really going". Anyway, this time I think he was genuinely interested, so I eagerly took the opportunity to show him a few things I had made. Realising that I had not actually given him anything for Christmas, I then offered him this scarf, which he had admired. (Even though we had initially thought it might be a bit girly for him, it was also the only other scarf I had finished!)

So, even though the scarf had now gone to a good home in London and not into my potential stock for the swanky store, I had at least had the foresight to take some snaps of it beforehand! I posted a few pics of it up on my new flickr site, wondering if it would get any views or comments. It was slow at first, but I was then very pleased to see that Pip from Meet Me at Mikes made this photo a favourite! High praise indeed! I was even happier when a few days later, my sister, greenolive, told me that it had been featured in a Mikes' blog post, in a collage of handmade crafty stuff! Not bad for a scarf that was initially a test, and then became a last minute, belated Christmas present!

I am now making a few more, as I had been smart enough to buy several balls of the wool. Whilst I do not currently have anywhere to sell them - I really do need to go and see that lady in that store - if anyone is interested in one, please let me know!