Russian Joins and knitting scarves!

My boyfriend recently decided that he wanted me to make him a hat and a scarf for the winter time, that he could also wear at work if needed. He's an "ambulance driver" as most people call him. So the last time we were at the craft store I let him pick out a color for his stuff. He meticulously walked up and down the aisle, touching and examining yarns, comparing and going back. It was fun to see him going through the same anguish I go through when picking yarn for a project. He finally settled on a lovely Denim Ombre done by Bernat. Going with his uniform coordination, the yarn was done in deeper shades of blue.


The hat was just a basic 3x2 ribbing with a very lovely decrease pattern for the crown, and really didn't take any time to do at all. Next time I think I may decrease the circumference a bit, but the hat is very stretchy so it's not really all that noticeable at all.

The next project was the scarf to go along with the hat. I wanted something very similar in pattern, but that was still a bit different. I found this pattern on Ravelry and knew it was it! The first skein had gone by quite quickly and today it was time to join my next skein. When I was first starting out learning to knit, i would just tie a big ol ugly knot and hope it blended in somewhat. Today I was determined to do something nicer. I came across the Russian Join and found a wonderful video on Knitting Help that gave a step by step on how to do it. So I gave it a try and it was a success! It's probably one of the nicest joins I have done to date!