From Pattern Notes:

“This year I launched my marketing and graphic design business. It takes up a lot of my time but I was determined to make scarves for 5 men and 12 women for Christmas gifts (within two months). I took up knitting and crochet about 6 months ago, and prefer the bulk of my needle craft projects to be more relaxing than challenging. I decided to focus on colour and composition for visually pleasing, want-to-wear scarves rather than advanced techniques. So, armed with a good sense of colour and composition, I grabbed my yarn, crochet hook and TV converter and got to work.

With good quality yarn and basic crochet skills you can quickly crochet an appealing scarf by keeping a few principles in mind:


1. Composition: Notice the approximate division of colours. 60% black, 35% gray, 5% red. This ratio and number of colours always makes a dynamic, balanced composition, guaranteed.


2. Contrast A: Colour(full) with colour(less). A simple splash of red surrounded by solid blocks of black and gray is all it took. Pick one highlight colour that is bright but keep the other two colours more dark and muted. Perhaps a dark and medium shade of olive green with a rust accent would be nice for your man? How about light and dark gray with plum for your lady friend? Contrast B: Varied shapes. Several Small squares a single thin line. Simple yet effective, no? If you know other crochet stitches (perhaps the v-stitch), do your highlight colour in that for some texture or sophisticated punch. Keep it to the single crochet stitch and one other stitch. No girlie-lacy stitches for the men though.


3. Make your scarf versatile. Tip #1: Short fringe is more tidy and sophisticated than long and can be worn to both casual and dressy occasions. Tip # 2: lacy pieces or loud colours don’t show up on many man occasions. Keep ‘er simple and quieter and your lucky male recipient will wear a hole in his scarf.


For both man and lady, I think if you keep it simple and sophisticated they’ll love and appreciate your gift and wear it often. It’s hand made with love, after all.“