These photos were taken on the first day of summer, when it was 39°.

The Elmo is a padded scarf with an opening and is designed for lightweight warmth and comfort on the coldest days. Although not mentioned, I think this is the perfect unisex scarf. When I showed my son he said he’d definitely borrow it if he ever went back to a cold country.

Under normal circumstances this would have been a really quick make but I chose to make it from some vintage black silk velvet, a whole roll of which was given to me by a friend.

I used cotton batting for the padding and used the velvet on both sides, although I had considered using something different on one side.

I can’t tell you how delicious this scarf feels. I also can’t tell you how hot I was when I took these photos, and the only solution was to wear bathers and have a swim afterwards.

I could leave this posting with this one photograph, but I have others so I’ll use them, even though they add nothing as a scarf is a scarf – right?

After I wrote this post we had a slightly cooler day so I stuck the scarf on over a dress – still too hot for any sort of coat.

I am also entering this scarf into the Designin’ December challenge where we are encouraged to find a design/designer we admire and replicate it. I found this Louis Vuitton scarf for a cool $3,550 and immediately thought – I can make that!

This one is made of 100% neovison vison fur, which I had to google. It comes from the weasel family and is apparently known as American mink! I did all this checking before I made my decision about what fabric to use and decided that vintage silk velvet was a much nicer choice!

The LV scarf has logos on one side and is plain on the other, so I thought I’d do the same. The photos at the beginning show the scarf on the plain side, but I fiddled around trying to put logos on the other side. I couldn’t copy the LV ones so thought I’d do my own monogram,

It was far too complicated. I used adhesive vinyl and had to take it off the backing with transfer tape, but then couldn’t transfer it to the velvet, so went back to the drawing board.

Whilst all this was playing around in my mind, I was wondering how to add a heart for the Sew do it for heart challenge promoting women’s heart health. It eventually occurred to me to just make hearts and stick them on, and that’s what I did.

My hearts are a bit shiny

As I wandered about I began shedding hearts, so was picking them up and sticking them on rather randomly. I discovered that I had a few stuck to my chest when I turned the scarf over!

I confess that I removed the hearts after the photos were taken but will be adding a sewn one at some point. Just playing with this scarf makes me feel hot!

This is a really lovely pattern and I’m sure I’ll make another at some point. I need to go somewhere really cold!

I do have a bit of a yearning to make one of these from upcycled denim or some sashiko stitched fabric. I feel as though it’s a design that would fit into lots of my crafty endeavours.