evening knitting

My dad actually asked for something specific for Christmas this year, which is basically unheard of. I'm really tickled that what he wanted was a hand knit scarf. "Long, with stripes, in Dad colors" was the request, so I got to indulge in a little bit of yarn shopping when I returned from my trip.

I knew I wanted to work with at least worsted weight yarn both to make the fabric a little hefty and to make the inches go by at a good clip. I also wanted the yarn to be soft and have great stitch definition but be reasonably priced so I could get 5 different colors. I remembered that I've been wanting to try out Heartland yarn from Lion Brand and there were some great "Dad colors" so I went that route. 

Aside: I spent a lot of vacation in stores perusing wearables and touching lovely knitted things. So many of the knits you can get in stores are made with acrylic yarns that manage to be soft and really appealing (a la the Anhild cowl at Anthropologie). With the exception of a few of the bulkier Lion Brand yarns, I haven't really seen anything similar in either the small local yarn stores or the larger craft stores. Where do we home knitters get to find these mythical creatures? And in all the great colors?

After browsing on Ravelry for a while looking at patterns, I discovered two things. First, it's really difficult to find unique but classic patterns for men. There are a lot of patterns with elaborate lace (too girly), lots of cables (probably not great with stripes), or just plain garter or stockinette stitch (kind of boring). I wanted something a little different to both hold my attention while knitting and strike that elusive balance between simple and eye catching. This leads me to my second discovery, the mini herringbone scarf from Purl Bee.  

I started but stopped an effort at the big herringbone cowl from the same site a while back. I'm not sure why, but the stitches seemed very foreign and complicated to me at the time so I decided no more. This version is not exactly the same, but very close and I've had no trouble getting started and memorizing the pattern. I'm a few stripes in and enjoying this as a way to feel like watching Arrow on Netflix isn't an idle evening activity. :)

I can already tell I'm going to like how this turns out. The fabric is sturdy but still springy, and the yarn shows off the herringbone stitch beautifully. I wasn't totally sure about the stripes not competing with the stitch pattern since I only saw one other project use multiple colors, but based on what I have right now I am pretty sure it won't be a problem! One foot down, several more to go….