Boyfriend's Finished Scarf

I finally finished boyfriend's scarf. It took me forever and I was knitting like a crazy woman, but it's finally done. I wanted to have it done on the 24th so that I could give it to him at his family's Christmas, but I missed that by three days. It's cool, though. He'll get it just the same, only now he won't get it until the 30th because I'm home for Christmas.

The finished scarf. It's about six and a half feet long when it's rolled out.

All in all the scarf didn't give me much trouble. After all, it was just knit. I did have to remind myself how to bind off, but I looked it up and refreshed my memory. However, I did make a mistake while I was binding off. For whatever reason, I lost my mind for a second and cut the yarn as if it was just an end I was going to weave in. Yeah, it wasn't, and I ended up cutting it at about half the length I needed, so I had to tie the ends back together.

A close up on the pattern of the scarf.

I'm still unsure whether or not I want to tie fringe onto the ends. I guess I can wait until I give it to boyfriend and ask him whether or not he'd like it.

It took me a year, but I finally finished this scarf, and I could not be happier. Is it the most refined project even I've ever done? No. Are there a few spots that look a little messy? Sure. But will boyfriend love it just the same? Absolutely.

Happy knitting!

Winter Again Means Knitting Again

I recognize that I kind of let this go after not too long last year. I went back to school and well . . . But I've been doing work on my knitting projects again this year. The one that's come the farthest is boyfriend's scarf. Last year it was only one flag, but now I'm onto the fourth flag.

It's come a long way, and I'm really pleased with how it's looking. I'm glad I went with the gauge I did and the number of stitches and all that I did. I think I'm going to have it be seven flags long when it's finished. That should be good and long and cuddly for a scarf. I'd like to have it done for this Christmas, but we'll see. It's not the only project I have after all.

Irish Flag Scarf

This is the beginning of the scarf I'm knitting for Shane. It's going to be a repetition of the Irish flag, you guessed it, in scarf form. He's Irish and requested that I knit him this scarf after being unable to find a similar scarf at Goodwill. We got there too late and someone had already snatched it. Major bummer. So I'm knitting him this one. Hopefully it'll be better than the other one because it will be exactly what he wants, at least as far as length and width. My cat is currently rolling all over it. I guess that means he likes it which must be a compliment.

I'm using US 8 (5mm) needles. 30 rows of 40 stitches per color, all knit stitch. I think it looks pretty nice so far, if I do say so myself. I'm just using Red Heart Super Saver yarn. It's acrylic and so a pain in the ass to block because wet blocking doesn't work, but it's cheap and more or less does the trick. I'm pretty pleased with the green and orange, but for whatever reason the white is pretty coarse, and I'm afraid it will be itchy. Maybe I'm just imagining it; or maybe the green and orange, which are very soft for Red Heart, will make up for it; or maybe it just needs to be washed. I hope it works out, though.

This is going to be the largest thing to date that I've made (and completed). I make a lot of hats. I love knitting hats. I've also done a headband which was very quick. And I have made some scarves before, but this one is wider than any of those, and I have a feeling Shane's going to want it to be incredibly long. Which is fine. As long as he doesn't expect it until next Christmas.

I'm really great about getting obsessed with things. Once it was baking. There was a period when i made cookies for everything. And not just a batch of chocolate chip cookies. We're talking elaborately decorated cookies. For example, in high school, a girl on my cross country team who I'd gotten somewhat close to had her birthday during the season, so I made cookies that spelled out "Happy Birthday E----" and a giant cookie for her proclaiming her new age. Or cooking or crocheting or knitting and sewing. Sometimes I'll hole up in my room for days or weeks at a time and take copious notes and study which has been my obsession for the last several months as I draw terrifyingly close to the end of my undergrad degree. Or I'll dig out some markers and write poetry all over my windows. (That one really weirded my roommate out when I lived in the dorms.) Sometimes I'll sit in front of my computer for days, barely taking time to eat or sleep, and just write forever. I've pumped out more than one short story that way. Or reading. There was a summer some years ago when I read no less than a book a day. Sometimes it's TV shows. I've watched seasons upon seasons of shows for days on end. Sometimes, to my embarrassment, it's FaceBook games. You know. My mother says I have a one track mind. I like to think of it as getting "locked on," to reference Skins.

Tangent aside, I really like the way this is looking. I kind of wish I had gone with stockinette stitch, but I really don't feel like starting over. I've also never worked with multiple colors before. I was surprised with how easy it was to switch colors. There will potentially be an update this evening to show how much progress I made today with this scarf. My goal is to at least to get back into green tonight.

PS. I hope the knitwitch doesn't mind me linking to her how-to's, but she's my favorite YouTube how-to for knitting.

UPDATE: I did get through the orange and back to the green like I hoped. Sorry the color's a little wonky. I had natural light earlier, but now it's dark, so I only have lamplight which makes everything yellow. And I'm using a webcam, so everything looks a little wonky always.