Fake-Faux: the word is "inured"

   Stripey Winter Throat Warmer

I learnt to knit garter stitch as a Brownie. We knitted squares to be sewn into a blanket for a charitable cause. Whoa Louisa May Alcott! Hold those bucolic thoughts of benevolent thrift! This was Zimbabwe-Rhodesia, 1979.

The resulting blanket was truly UGLY as only a project of mean, acrylic yarn remnants garnered from the bottom of knitting baskets at the end of that decade could be: a dropped-stitch riddled patchwork of burnt orange, salmon, bottle green and mustard interspersed with odd squares in new born baby pastels (give or take an occasional crumb of peanut butter and syrup sandwich – a Brownie staple). It was probably palmed off on somebody’s underpaid, disenfranchised maid servant as we upstart, sanctimonious six year olds were congratulated on our magnanimous act of altruism and presented with much coveted knitter interest badges to sew onto our badge sashes.

Years later, under duress, I knitted a toy in garter stitch for a Home Economics class project. I decided on knitting a beige Pink Panther to co-ordinate with the 80’s knotty pine ceiling & mute green walls of my bedroom; because as a teenager mired in white, apartheid South Africa, I exercised my choice to fully test the ambit of straight-laced conventionalism with impassive indifference because there was no access to any promise of anything better.

More years later my third ever attempt at knitting: I have just completed this winter throat warmer as a harbinger of striped deckchair days and the promise of that elusive sun-drenched picnic in St James's park being hustled by the Canada geese for (peanut butter and syrup) sandwich crusts.

To knit this scarf I used:

• 3.5mm needles rather than the recommended 4mm


• 2x 50g balls Debbie Bliss merino dk red 225700


• 2x 50g balls Debbie Bliss merino dk blue 225203


• 1x 50g balls Debbie Bliss merino dk grey 225104


• 1x 50g ball Debbie Bliss merino dk white 225100

I sewed the corsages to badge pins so that they could be removed or positioned where I liked once I had put the scarf on and adjusted it in the mirror. They are also very convenient for disguising the odd unsightly twisted, picked-up dropped stitch or any other unintentional loop, split stitch, hole, knot or irregularity.

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