Infinity-scarf with a hood

 In my ongoing quest to not freeze this winter I have been wearing a lot of hoodies inside often with the hood up. This means that I need to change into a sweater when I go outside. You just can't wear a hoodie under a wool coat at least not comfortably. Also when I get back in I don't have a hood anymore unless I change clothes again. But I have come opp-on a solution to this problem a sweater and a removable hood. Or to put it differently a circle scarf with a hood attached. 

The idea is to make it in sort of this shape (see picture) then fold in the center and sew or crochet the top together. Of course the long part being a circle but that's hard to draw and I was more interested in the measurements. I had used a scarf I have to measure out the length. Circle scarfs are annoying like that doing them too long or too short makes them hard to fit.  Since I'm doing Doing it lengthwise I need to figure this out from the beginning since I can't add anything later on.

For this project I plan on using some of my left over yarn Since I feel like I have too much of it. This isn't even all of my yarn just the ones that matched my color scheme. This is also why I decided to use needle-binding since it works well with yarn scraps. Unlike knitting where you just pull as much from the skein as you need for each stitch. In needle-binding you cut off and use a short piece at a time. 

I don't have enough of any color for the whole hood so the plan is to use alternating colors first the black then gray then blue. letting the colors overlap and creating a gradient.

A thing that annoys me when I'm googling ideas for what to do with crafting scraps is that they mostly assume that you have the same yarn or fabric in different colors. I do not. I have wool and cotton, thick and thin, elastic and non elastic and they in general do not want to work together. 

This is what I'm thinking as I'm finishing the second row of this scarf in a thicker yarn that almost completely covers the first row.

I'm on row ten when I notice that the scarf has gotten longer and by quite a bit too. I think its a result of measuring it out using a thinner yarn and then doing the same number of stitches for the thicker one. At this point I should unpick it and start over. But needle-binding takes almost as long time to unpick as it does to make. So instead I chose to keep going hoping that reducing the number of stitches would fix it. You'd think I'd have learned by now that this rarely works. This time was no exception

After making two new rows I ended up unpicking it anyway and started over this time starting with the thicker yarn. I then unpicked it again because I had figured out another way to add a new row. This would allow me to put the rows side by side rather than overlapping them. This reduces the thickness but lets me get more length which I need since I have limited yarn. Needle-binding is still rather new to me and I'm still figuring it out. 

Third time was the charm and I finished the scarf part. Starting on the hood I measured out the length for it and marked it off on the scarf. Then once I reached my marker I simply stopped going round and started going back and forth between the markers. Slowly it started going higher.

Every row I also started adding a single stitch in the center back of the hood to make a bit if room for the back of my head. Then once it got high enough I started reducing by one stitch instead. Then two and three as I started to reach the top. Until finally I could stitch the top together. Here was a bit of a problem you can sort of see it on the picture but the top is a bit concave with the front being higher than the center. I solved this by stitching the front together then doing another few rows on the inside of the hole left before binding the edges together. Then all that was left was weaving in the edges of which needle-binding has many.   

Result

Trying it on it wasn't quite as deep as I wanted so I added two rows along the front edge. This also evened it out some but really can you ever have a hood that's too large. 

Despite the hood size I still liked the shape of it. However I'm also not sure about the color. The gradient is a bit stark so the scarf is gray and the hood blue and a bit uneven. It looks like it was made from scraps more than anything deliberate. I know that's what it is but I'd still prefer it not look like that.

It is cozy and warm though so I have been using it quite a bit. It's nice to wander around the house with which was the plan all along so I'm not too disappointed.

I might redo this some day but then with a single color and type of yarn. If so I'll make the hood even deeper and have something More dramatic.