honestly & fer truly? i'd make a hat or something to go with your scarf, something that uses purls and decreases and so on. the stitch pattern will be easy on that afghan, but you'll need to get the hang of it. purling can be really tricky to pick up on your own; it took me OVER A YEAR to figure it out (although, honestly, it's not like i spent the whole year trying).

you can find yarn shops in yr phone book usually under "yarn". some of them might give lessons or a beginners class or something!