Merry Christmas! A Dr Who scarf

Late last year, I asked Ben what he wanted for Christmas.  He came up with a few ideas, things that I could easily acquire.  Then he asked if I could make something.  Of course! Well, I could try.  Could I knit a scarf?  Definitely!  Could I knit a Dr. Who scarf? Erm, possibly, what is a Dr. Who scarf?

My knowledge of Dr. Who, or indeed anything science-fiction/fantasy is very, very small.  It's just not something I've ever been interested in.  But I am interested in knitting and I know I can knit a scarf. So a quick bit of Googling and I found lots photos from people who have already made Dr. Who scarves.

The first thing I learned was that the scarf in the television show was long.  Very, very long.  Ben wanted to wear his scarf as an actual day-to-day scarf so I just needed to make it standard scarf length.

The scarf is just row after row after row of garter stitch - I am glad Ben didn't want a much longer scarf as it was getting quite tedious after a while!  Using photos online as a guide I ordered various balls of Stylecraft Special DK (what else) and cast on lots of stitches (I have no idea how many) and got knitting.

I changed colour a few times.  I kept knitting.

After about 40 rows (which didn't take me that long, it is such easy knitting) I asked Ben what he thought.  He asked if he could be honest.  I said yes, honesty is good, I'd rather change something now in order to end up with something he'd wear, than keep going and give him something he doesn't like.

So he said the scarf was too wide and one of the colours wasn't right.  I pulled it all out (making him help me wind the little bits of yarn into balls) and then started again, this time with fewer stitches and omitting the offensive colour. I showed Ben my colour order and he approved, so off I went with the knitting.

And knitting, and knitting, and knitting.

I made each block of colour as big as I wanted it to be.  There are more dark blocks than lighter/brighter blocks, it is completely not my cup of tea at all (khaki! burgundy!) but I have to say the project as a whole did grow on me over time.  

Eventually, it was long enough (thank goodness, as I was now quite bored).

I spread it out on the floor to see just how long it was:

I then realised just how many ends I had to sew in.

I hate sewing in ends.  Hate it.  I tend to sew them in as I go as I know just how much I hate doing lots at once, but for some reason on this scarf I hadn't.  I think there were 90 ends to sew in.

Lots of ends.

SO MANY ENDS.

Over the course of a couple of evenings, I got them all sewn in.  It might have involved quite a lot of complaining, in person to Ben and via text message to several knitting friends who would appreciate my pain.

Done! Finished! Think this was in January, I definitely didn't have it done by Christmas.  So I gave it to Ben, thinking that was the end of that and he could wear it.  Excellent.

Nope.  Apparently the original scarf has tassels.  Please could I add tassels to this scarf?

Sigh.  Yes, yes of course I can.  I'd hidden the remains of the dark balls of yarn at the bottom of my yarn stash and covered them in much brighter colours.  I dug them out, and got making lots of tassels.

Turns out I don't particularly like making tassels.

I cut lots and lots and lots and lots and lots of strands of yarn and decorated the sofa.

Then I made the tassels, ten on each end.

And then finally, finally,  it was properly finished.  It's now pretty much spring, and yesterday Ben wore it out of the house for the first time.

Whilst it's not my cup of tea, I have to say it does brighten up the otherwise dark collection of coats.

It's so satisfying to see someone use the item you've made for them.  Whilst I didn't particularly enjoy this project, Ben appreciates the final product and that's the main thing!