Ice and snow mean lots of knitting time.

So I've been stuck in the house for three and a half days now, due to weather. Well, other than going outside to take pictures. That lasted all of five minutes before my tolerance of the windchill was gone. I'm much happier inside under my several layers of blankets.

Obviously, this meant that I knit a lot. A friend's birthday is coming up, so I decided to make her Odessa. I didn't have enough beads in a coordinating color, so I did it without. After I finished it, though, I realized I had made her a headband for Christmas. Normally, I wouldn't worry about it much and would give her the hat anyway, but I needed another project... This picture is terrible, by the way. It really isn't shaped like a bucket.

So. Another project. I decided to go with a scarf, because everyone needs a good wool scarf, and I don't believe this particular friend has received one from me yet. I made her a vertically striped garter scarf. My original plan was to use a fun stitch pattern, but as I experimented, I realized that the yarn would look best plain... So it ended up just 11250 knit stitches. Yeah. Suffice to say that I was ready to be finished long before it was done. But I held out and read while I knit, which always makes a project go faster for me. I do definitely like the finished product. Yay snow days and scarves.

Scarves.

I love scarves. I think that no matter how long I knit and how skilled I become, scarves will still be my favorite thing to make. I'm not sure exactly what it is that I enjoy so much about making them, but whenever I want to start a new project, scarves are the first thing I consider. So, here are some of the scarves I've recently finished or been working on, including my first FO of 2007.

Which is this! I started this scarf using the Branching Out pattern. I've made Branching Out before, and normally I don't repeat patterns very frequently, but I bought this gorgeous handpainted alpaca that just seemed to WANT to be Branching Out. And who am I to defy the wonderful yarn? It's slightly shorter than I'd have liked, just because I only bought one skein of this yarn and so when it ran out, I was a little out of luck. It blocked out to a reasonable length, though. I want it to be autumn so I can wear it.

Second. I finished knitting this scarf in November, but I didn't block it until this week. I made this pattern from a mishmash of things I'd seen in various other patterns and books. I believe I got the stitch pattern from Knitting on the Edge and used the idea of knitting it the long way from Scarf Style. The blocking... didn't go so well. I may have to redo it, because I think I was too eager and unpinned it too soon. It's still a little curly. I used Debbie Bliss Merino Chunky that I got from a sale bin at my LYS. Yay sale!

And then I have two that, when I was taking pictures, were on the needles. The blue and grey one is simple stripes knit in the round for my band director. He has attempted to take my favorite thick wool scarf that looks quite similar to this on more than one occasion, so I knit him one with spare Caron Simply Soft. I decided to go ahead and use acrylic because I know that he will throw it in the washing machine, no matter what I tell him. I actually finished it last night, but I'm too lazy to take more pictures of it, so this will have to do.

And last but not least, the only one I'm still working on. I'm using the Misty Garden pattern from Scarf Style and JoAnn's Sensations yarn in a variety that I can't quite remember and doesn't seem to be on the website. I'm going to give this to someone. I just don't know who.