Besotted Meets Rasta

This is the scarf that I made from the yarn leftover from my Wilted Leaf Cardigan. The yarn is Cascade 220, black because I was thinking "sweater that goes with everything in my closet" and not "scarf that will eventually be photographed for the blog I never dreamed I would have".

The fringe is from Melissa Matthay’s "Little Box of Scarves" (don't remember if it’s I or II; I was watching one of the teachers at a somewhatLYS make a shop sample). The body is the Besotted Scarf http://helloyarn.com/besottedcarf.htm.

I knitted this on Clover Bamboo #4's. How to describe my delight at watching 45 twisted springy thingies, interspersed with 44 stitches on my needle, shrink from roughly two feet of chaos to a 5-1/2" scarf? Never underestimate the take-up power of 2x2 ribbing!

And this had to be the least boring bind-off I have done in forty-six years of knitting (yes, you read that right). I tried to figure out how to finish with 45 springy thingies on the second end but was only able to manage 43. It's not visually obvious, and I think it will only bother the eventual owner if he/she is a CPA with OCD.

Yes, you read that right, too. This one goes into the donation box, bound for Parts East and the neck of someone I will never meet in this life. The eyebrows of one of my new friends in the knitting group flew up so high when I mentioned this, that I thought they were going fly right off her face!

I have strong opinions on the topic of giving to charity, having been relatively poor for much of my adult life. [Dusting off the soapbox, which is the only dusting that will get done here this week.]

When the children's father was pursuing an advanced degree, we were Seriously Poor. And sundry nice folks at church and elsewhere helped out with hand-me-downs for the kids. The clothing from other Seriously Poor families was clean, clever, and useful, as was some of the clothing from church and elsewhere. But some of the things we were given, I wouldn't have let my kids wear to clean out the henhouse. Just because one is Seriously Poor, it does not follow that one has no taste or self-respect.

Therefore, my choice is to only give away things that I'd be delighted to wear myself. And I hope that somewhere in Parts East there is a brother or a sister who is thinking, "Hrmmm, winter is coming, and I sure hope I'll have a scarf that's warm and doesn't show the dirt and makes me smile."

And I hope that when he/she sees this scarf, the smiling starts.