Welcome to '05. Have a Scarf.

The days leading up to Christmas found me knitting, knitting, knitting on many accessories for friends. They were all fun projects -- mostly scarves, mostly quick knits. I won't even get into how many mind-candy movies I watched while doing the knitting. Let's just say that Kate Hudson figured prominently in the lineup. (What's the point of a vacation if you have to think too hard?)

First, I finished the ribbed scarf in Lorna's Laces Angel:

I cannot say enough good things about this yarn! It is so soft, so snuggly, so gorgeous. I ended up going up a needle size, to US9, to get a nice drape on it. I did a simple 2x2 rib over 28 stitches... I wanted it to be a bit wider, but at 32 stitches it did a weird pooling thing. I used 4 skeins and it's 52 inches long, not quite 4 inches wide. And check out the fuzz on this thing:

Oooh, such halo-ey goodness. I think the only downside is that you shouldn't knit with Angel while wearing black, and a lint roller is a necessity both for clothing and for upholstery. A small price to pay!

My lack of organization hurt me here, though. I thought I had 4 skeins of this stuff, so I based my knitting on that. After the scarf was completed, and all wrapped up, I was stash-diving and came across a another wayward skein. Anyone up for a small-scale trade? I'll trade you for a knitting mag you no longer want or need. E-mail me if you're interested.

Once that was done, I turned my attention to the boyfriend's scarf. Last year, I made him a seed stitch scarf out of Kureyon, but it never softened up like I'd hoped. So this year, the goal was soft. Squishy. Warm. When I was in Colorado, Stacey and Anne and I went to the Recycled Lamb, where they had big hanks of alpaca in a dark charcoal heather. That was just the ticket. I doubled the sportweight yarn and used a mistake rib stitch (on US10s) to make a squooshy, soft, yet masculine scarf. It's about an inch thick:

And yeah, he loved it. Then, with the leftovers, I also made a little ear-band, so that his ears will stay warm outside:

It didn't turn out as well as I'd hoped--even though I went up 3 "needle" sizes to bind off with a crochet hook, using the crochet bind-off that Vogue Knitting said was stretchy, the bind-off edge is still too tight. (Now taking suggestions for a super-stretchy bindoff.)

So then I wanted to do something fun and girly, so I turned to the spiral scarf from Scarf Style. The perfect thing for a good friend, using some stash alpaca from elann. Three skeins yielded 75 inches of curlycue goodness:

This pattern was such a delight! It was totally fun. And quick! I love the four-row repeat... it would be great commuting knitting or waiting-room knitting. I'll be making one for myself soon, I predict.

So, those are the gift scarves of my season. More accessories to report in the next day or two!

In the meantime, I cast on this

to become this:

I know, it looks like it might end up straight and narrow. But it's so not a scarf.