Secret Knit - no more!

This secret knit has been in the works for awhile. It has seen some things, has been learned from and even went to a baseball game. But all the while, its true identity had to remain a secret. See, the recipent of this scarf just so happens to be one of Nonnahs' best friends and I had a sneaky suspicion that he may check in on the blog from time to time.

He is also a good friend of mine, who helped cultivate my completely hopeless inner Harry Potter fan that I now am. He was the one who lent me the most recent books that I devoured. I've already promised him that I would go with him the night of the last book release and now he has a groovy Gryffindor scarf to go along as well!

Onto the detail stuff...If you are so inclined to make yourself or one of your favorite Harry Potter fans a scarf of their own, I highly recommend this pattern from atypically knit. She has done an amazing job of detailing the scarf specifications from those made for the movie, down to the proper number of stripes and tassels. She even made yarn and color suggestions for every House.

She also wanted to provide people with a pattern for a traditional scarf, not just one that was striped with the right colors. As such, this scarf is not worked back and forth. It is worked in the round like a big tube. In places where it actually gets cold, this obviously provides for a much warmer scarf, since it is twice as thick.

Now, my friend is a human furnace who lives in San Diego. In fact, I'm pretty sure he contributes the extra energy he generates back to the local power grid. However, the point of the whole thing was for him to have a 'real' Harry Potter scarf. So, imagine my joy when I learned he would be traveling to Wyoming for Thanksgiving...and was looking into buying a Harry Potter scarf for the trip. Talk about perfect timing! (Hee, hee.)

Anyhoo, so using the pattern from atypically knit, I made the scarf on size 7 circular needles with worsted weight Nature Spun from Brown Sheep with almost 2 complete balls each of Sunburst Gold (308W) as suggested and Scarlet (N48), which was available and pretty darn close to the suggested color. This is where I marvel at how much yardage went into this scarf - close to 1000!! The yarn knits up as a light worsted and was wonderful to knit. I look forward to using it for other projects because the yardage for the price is unbelievable. In fact, a couple of the girls, including Knitzalot, are using Nature Spun for their Deep V vests for our class.

I didn't worry about gauge too much, so it is off a bit. Consequently, I had some extra yarn because my stripes are a little narrower and shorter. And since my friend is tall, I just kept knitting stripes until I wasn't sure I would be able to get another one out...and began contemplating jumping off the roof of my office building. The end result is about 4 extra stripes and a few more tassels, because I like the look of more tassels with less bulk. I call it artistic license.

When I was all done with the knitting, I steam blocked it, and added the tassels to close up the open tube. The scarf's transformation was amazing after the steam blocking. I feel like it really looks like something you would buy in a store, very semetrical, very orderly, very uniform. I am very pleased with the results, but even more pleased by the reaction I received from my friend when he opened it up.

Despite nearly a sweater's worth of knitting on this scarf, it was a really fun project. It was one of those knits that just flows off the needles and only toward the end, did my hands start to hurt. I realized I had been knitting over the top of the scarf on my lap - the hight of which kept growing, which threw my posture out of wack.

One of these days, I will have to make one for myself because it is a great all-around, very wearable scarf...for cold weather, that is.