Grey Knitted Hat and Scarf

I haven't posted for a while because moving country and settling in to a new home has been taking up most of my energy.  But I'm back, and I'm motivated to bring you more craft posts!

Today I finished a project I've been working on on-and-off during the move: a nice warm scarf and hat for my partner.

I used a nice soft wool, because there's nothing worse than having an itchy neck.  It's got a nice stretch in it too.

I think I made the hat a little big because I went with the average size suggested in my knitting book instead of trying my hand at measuring his head and altering the pattern to fit, but it still looks good, and at least it's not too small!

The scarf was a nice de-stressing project to pick up at moments when I had time during the move, and since it's just a straight-forward scarf with no embellishments, I didn't have to keep track of a pattern, so it was an ideal project to be getting on with from time to time without losing where I was with it.  

I did have a problem with it a few days ago however!  Since I've not been knitting it very regularly I'd put it aside and tidied up and when I came back to it half of the stitches on the last row I knitted had slid off.  I tried patiently looping the stitches back on the needle, which I thought had worked, until I continued knitting and realised I'd knit two rows together and it looked a mess.  I looked in my knitting book to see how to rectify this kind of mistake but it didn't mention a solution to this particular problem.

I didn't take a photo of it at the time, because I was very frustrated and ready to just undo the whole thing, when I was struck by a brain-wave.  My experiment paid off!

I decided to try picking up one of the previous rows I'd knitted correctly by weaving the other knitting needle through one of the rows.  I chose one a little way down from where I'd gone wrong (about 5 rows down) in case it started unravelling while I worked.

Once I'd got the knitting needle through each loop (picking up the parts of the stitches which look like the tops of little waves, as you can see in the pictures) and counted how many stitches there were to verify I still had the correct amount, I unravelled the work I'd done above it.  I waited with baited breath to see if it worked, and it did!

I was then able to continue knitting from this row; and although the stitches were a little tighter to work from, the second row I knitted was back to normal.  Phew!

This trick also came in handy a little while later when I made a mistake while casting off.

I was really pleased with the end result, and particularly pleased with the casting off, which I managed to keep loose enough to not bunch up at the end.

So there you have it, my first adult sized hat and scarf!