Making Use of Narrow Scarves

Between a conversation with a friend and a forum I read, I've recently encountered several people trying to figure out how to use narrow (meaning not wide enough to cover the whole head in one pass) scarves to cover their head.  Here are a few of the "work-arounds" that I've figured out, so far, for making use of a scarf that isn't quite wide enough to easily cover your whole head.

1. You can loop it around your head twice, so that the first time covers the front, and the second loop sits farther back on the head and covers the back of your head/your hair.  This is a little hard to keep on if you tuck it in at the back, though.

2. Use it as an under-layer or over-layer with a larger scarf.  As an under-layer, it frames your face, but isn't being asked to provide full coverage.  As an over-layer, you see the whole scarf, but there's another scarf providing the extra width.  If it's missing only a little bit of width, you can use a wide headband in front, instead of another whole scarf, also.  You have to make sure that this doesn't slip, though.

3. Make it into an accent-scarf: Use another scarf to get the functional stuff done (wrap it, normally, around your head), and bunch up, fold, or twist the narrower scarf, and tie it, like a headband around your head.  You can then take the ends of the two scarves and twist them together to use around your bun or the top of your head, or layer them individually, alternating. Even more options include braiding them or letting them hang loose down your neck.  Similarly, you could wrap the large scarf around a bun, and use the accent scarf to go around the bun, or to cross it (as in my recent posts from this week).

3b.  Another use as an accent scarf is to tie a larger scarf as usual, then twist its tails with the accent scarf, and bring both ends up as a crown.  (I think I should do this again soon, so I can add an illustration.)  This is particularly good for scarves that are both narrow and slightly shorter than the usual.

4.  If you have a cap or large kippah, you can wrap the narrow scarf like a turban/headband, with the cap covering the center of your head, like this.

What other ideas can you add to my list?