If you can’t wear wool

Like many people I can remember being bought a scratchy woollen school scarf as a child. Worn once and never again. No winter scarves for me as I discovered that all wool next to my skin brought me out in a fine rash. Unfortunately the message didn’t reach my grandmother. One Christmas she gave me a beautiful, hand-knitted, wool tam o’ shanter from the Isle of Arran. I dutifully wore it for a photo and then popped it out of sight.

A few years later and another Christmas she bought me an oatmeal, cable knit pullover this time made from synthetic fibres. It was my favourite sweater and I wore it until the cuffs came up to my elbows as I gradually grew out of it.

Another Christmas and another generation and my daughter received a woolly looking top, but by then knitted woollens had been superseded by fleeces.

Silk scarf for winter – warmer than you think! Hand painted silk scarf 90 x 90 cm crepe de chine.  Silvia Clover from Agnes Ashe.

And finally regarding wearing woollen scarves. Sometime in my twenties I acquired my first silk scarf and soon realised looping it a couple of times round my neck and trapping air made a silk scarf as warm as any synthetic winter scarf.