Tutorial: Fun Fun-Fur Scarves

A few years ago, fun-fur was very in. Many craft stalls looked like the scene of a Muppet massacre, awash with swathes of multi-coloured fluff. Then ... fun-fur went out of style. Let's be honest, few people want to be attacked by members of PETP (People for the Ethical Treatment of Puppets) and, besides, working with fun-fur is immensely tedious. It knots easily. Underneath the furry threads, the actual yarn is very thin and it takes aaaaaages to get anywhere with it. I'm willing to bet that there are half-finished fun-fur scarves languishing at the bottom of thousands of wardrobes.

But strangely enough, few passers-by can resist touching a furry scarf on a craft stall: they're very tempting for those of us affected by chronic tactility. So how can we use up those orphan skeins of fun-fur left over from the days when yarn shops were full to bursting with the stuff? Well, I still use fun-fur and I've managed to make loads of scarves that look ... well, relatively nice actually. Sadly, my photography skills do not lend themselves to capturing their niceness in pictorial form, but I'll do my best - with the aid of my lovely model, Gladys:

Essentially, you need
100g acrylic yarn
(a lighter weight yarn is better. Worsted weight might "swallow up" the effect of the fur because it's comparatively thick.)
75g fun fur
an H (5 mm) hook
Pattern is in American terms. British terms are in [brackets].

What is important is that the two yarns be close in colour. The furriness looks more discreet and less crazy when the colours are tone-in-tone. If you're into crazy, go with contrasting colours, but don't say I didn't warn you.

Start by chaining till you've reached your desired length. My dining room table is 150 cm (approx 60 inches), so my starting chain is always the length of my table. Yup. That's precise for ya.

Row 1 (acrylic): Start with the acrylic yarn. In the fourth chain from the hook, crochet a DC [TR]. Crochet one DC [TR] in each stitch in the chain. When you get to the end, cut the yarn and weave the tail back in along the top of the stitches with your hook.

Row 2 (fun-fur): Don't turn the scarf! Attach the fun-fun by chaining two into the first stitch as a kind of 'fake' SC [DC]. Crochet one SC [DC] into the top of the stitches in the previous row. Crochet to the end of the row, crocheting over the woven-in tail of the previous row. Now turn your work.

Repeat rows 1 (DC [TR] in each stitch) and 2 (SC [DC] in the top of each stitch in the previous row till the scarf reaches the desired width. Both rows 1 and 2 should go in the same direction, i.e. don't turn your work between row 1 and 2, only turn your work after every second row.

But why, Gingerbread Lady, why? you grizzle. Well, the fun-fur appears furriest at the back of the SC row. If every SC [DC] row is crocheted on the same side, in the same direction, then one side of the scarf will be very furry and the other side won't. This way, both sides are evenly furry and everyone's happy.

When you're finished (and you should finish as you started - on a row with the acrylic yarn) you can crochet one row of DC [TR] or SC [DC] around the scarf in the acrylic yarn to neaten your edges. Cut yarn and weave in your tail.