A letter from a reader

At 68, I wear a scarf in my own kitchen from October to April

There are things a woman admits to and things she does not, and wearing a scarf indoors, in her own kitchen, with the heating on, has been in my second pile for years. I am 68, I am not a writer, and I am putting it in the first pile now because I suspect half the women reading this have a kitchen scarf too, and none of us have ever said it out loud.

Then three different women asked me about a jumper at the church coffee morning on Saturday, and I have said the same thing three times, so I am writing it down once.

Here is how the kitchen scarf happens. Every jumper I own stops at the neck. Round necks, V-necks, one polo neck that I cannot breathe in. And a neck at 68 has opinions about a draught that a neck at 40 does not. So from October the scarf goes on with the jumper, indoors, and then the day is spent managing it. Re-tied at the sink. Caught in the dishwasher door. Trailed through the gravy at Sunday lunch once, in front of Sylvia, who has dined out on it since.

A warm neck and a scarf to manage all day, or a bare neck and the draught down my collar. From October I managed the scarf.

Nobody decides to wear a scarf at the kitchen sink. It happens one cold morning at a time, until it is simply what you put on, like glasses.

Then Jean came to the allotment without her scarf

Jean next door owns more scarves than the market stall, and in the first cold week of autumn last year she came through the allotment gate without one, which is how I knew something had happened. She was in a deep green jumper with a wide soft collar folded over her shoulders, closed at the front in one neat pleat, and her neck was covered the way mine is covered by a scarf, except nothing was tied, nothing was slipping, and both her hands were free for the beans.

It is called the Sunnora, from Manchester Boutique, a small British boutique that has been quietly dressing women our age for a few years now. I ordered the green that evening, fully expecting to send it back.

It did not go back. The kitchen scarf did, to the drawer.

What happened at the coffee morning

I wore it on Saturday over dark jeans, without a scarf, on the first morning cold enough to matter, and I poured tea for two hours with both hands and nothing trailing.

Three different women asked me where it was from before the urn had boiled. And Sylvia, who has known me thirty years and does not hand out compliments, asked where the scarf was, looked at the collar, and said the collar was better. From Sylvia, that is practically a medal.

Here is why it works, as far as I can tell. The collar is wide and soft and ribbed, and it folds over the shoulders like a small shawl, so the neck is covered from every side, not just the front the way a scarf covers it. The little pleat at the front closes it in a soft V, so it looks arranged without being fussed over, and there is nothing to tie, slip, or dip in the gravy. The rest of the jumper holds its end up too. Fine and smooth rather than bulky, so it goes under a coat. Long in the body with a curved hem that covers what I want covered. Deep ribbed cuffs that stay put at the sink. And the green is a proper bottle green, which after a decade of grey knitwear felt like a decision.

It has been on four times since, and round the house every evening, which is the real test, because nobody performs for their own kitchen.

Three things worth knowing

One. The collar is the jumper. Wide, soft, folded over, closed in one pleat. It is a scarf that never needs re-tying, and once you have worn it round a kitchen for a week you will not go back to the tied kind.

Two. Fine beats bulky. It is warm the way a good knit is warm, without the bulk, so it goes under my coat and does not turn me into upholstery. I have worn it out and worn it in, and it behaves in both.

Three. Three colours, honest sizes. The green I own, a red and a pink, from an S to a 3XL, the same easy shape in all of them. I have my eye on the red. Jean has the green and the pink, and her scarves are for sale, she says.

About the price

I am careful with money and I will not pretend otherwise, so I will tell you the price was the bit that made me suspicious.

The Sunnora is £44.95. It was £90.00.

My first thought was that there had to be a catch, because a knit this soft with a collar this clever is department-store money anywhere else, and the department store would want the ninety.

There is no catch that I have found. They are a small boutique selling directly, so there is no department store taking a cut in the middle, and they sell the autumn stock through the summer sale, which is when a sensible woman buys her winter.

I do not trust perfect scores, so I read the reviews before I told my sister about it. Just over three hundred of them, sitting at 4.2 stars, which sounded like real people, so I read on. One woman had written, “The collar is like wearing a scarf that never comes undone. Warm without being bulky and I have stopped wearing a scarf indoors.” That was the one that decided it for me.

If you were stood at my kitchen table

If you were stood at my kitchen table with the kettle on and a scarf round your neck and you asked me, this is what I would say.

If you wear a scarf in your own kitchen from October, you are not eccentric. You have been buying jumpers that stop at the neck for forty years because that is all the shops sell, and covering the difference yourself. This is the jumper that finishes the job, and it costs less than a good scarf and a jumper bought separately.

Two practical things. The sale is on now, and the middle sizes go first. And once the stock has gone, it is gone.

The scarves are in the drawer with the cardigan. It is getting crowded in there.

Pat