November 26, 2010

Since I was able to whip up a pair of fingerless gloves for my little sister so fast, I thought I'd go ahead and try to get a scarf done for my dad. I hadn't really planned on doing any Christmas knitting this year but you know what they say about well made plans.
I've had my eye on this scarf that I saw on Jared Floods Website, Brooklyn Tweed for some time. I thought it was a really beautiful scarf that was masculine enough for my dad while still being interesting enough for me to knit.
Photo & Knitting by Jared Flood, from his blog, Brooklyn Tweed

The pattern for the scarf is called Aran Cashmere Scarf by Beth Walker-O'Brien. It's from a book called Simple 1-2-3 Knitting. It took a lot of time and research but I finally found the book on Barnes & Noble.com. I'm not sure if the book is currently out of print or not but when I found it I bought it. It was pretty cheap as I recall, about $6.00 not including shipping. I bought it back in January with the intention of knitting this scarf for my dad but with the crazy year I've been having I figured it would be much easier to just do store bought gifts for everyone this year instead of trying to knit everyone something special.
But since I was able to knit up the gloves for Jess so quickly, I figured I'd give the scarf ago and see if I can get it done in time. I have a couple of weeks before I need to get the gifts wrapped and boxed and mailed to my parents house in Oregon but I think I should be able to get it done in time. This weekend is going to be a quiet one around my house since Hubbs is on call for work and it's supposed to be storming.
I stopped off at my local Jo-Anns Crafts on my way home from work on Monday to check see if they had any yarn that interested me. Normally for gift knitting I would pick up something more luxurious from my local yarn shop but since the scarf is going to be for my dad, I figured something that is soft and durable as well as machine washable would be best. I'm sure that my dad will end up wearing this out in shop where it will get wood chips and other assorted shop type stuff on it. And I wanted my step-mom to be able to just toss it into the wash without a second thought. I spent about 30 min's waffling back and forth over a couple of different yarns but in the end, I chose Lion Brand Wool Ease in Worsted weight for my project. I chose a grey very similar to the color that Jared Flood chose for his scarf.
I'm going to put my Moorish Lattice Cardigan to the side to concentrate on getting this scarf done for my dad. If I can get it done in a timely manner, I might decide to tackle a cowl for my step-mom. If there's time, I'm thinking something done in a blue to bring out her beautiful eyes. I've already picked out another gift for her in case I can't get everything done in time. Fingers crossed!

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