FO: Jules' Scarf

Another the parade of much delayed FOs.

This is the scarf I made for Jules for his birthday. This was the mystery project that had to be green that I talked about here. Jules' favorite color is green.

I used two skeins of Misti Alpaca Chunky in color 652. I think. Actually, that may have been the dye lot. It looks like VR1440 in Forest Green. Anyway, I kind of wish I had bought three skeins so I could have made it longer.

I used US size 8 needles, good old aluminum Boye straights.

I remembered seeing a mistake rib scarf floating around back at the Knit n' Knibble in Florida. I was looking for something similar. I finally did a much modified version of the Misti Chunky Ribs and Ruffles Scarf. I took off the ruffles and widened it. (I think I cast on 31 stitches, but I'm not sure.) It's a brioche rib, I think.

The ends ended up a little wonky looking. The picture on the right is pre-blocking. I managed to sort of block it "in." When you block, you normally stretch things out. I think I managed to reset it using a cold water block. It wasn't perfect, but it was an improvement. Who knows what would have happened if I'd stretched the width of the whole thing.

As you can see, I managed to get away with just blocking the ends. I folded it in the middle.

Jules loved it, although I sent it late. (But not because of the knitting. I was behind on other parts of the gift.) This was part of what he e-mailed me when he finally got my gift:

...And I *LOVE* the scarf!! It is even nicer than I imagined. For some reason I envisioned this big, awkward thing with a bunch of wild colors. But it is actually rather conservative and gentlemanly. I can see myself wearing it whenever we get a cold spell. And I'll definitely bring it with me this Christmas...

LOL. I can do awkward and wild colors too.

The other cool thing is that he now knows what alpaca is, and he loves it. He can't get over how soft it is. When I asked him about what type of scarf he wanted me to knit him, the first thing he said was "not itchy." Alpaca is what most people go to when they're worried about itchy.

He's learning. He knows what an FO is. He just needs to remember that I'm not a seamstress.