Scarf 57 & Scarf 58: Nice People are Nice

When I was in sixth grade my English teacher banned the word "nice" from his class. "Good" met the same fate. While I genuinely appreciated his attempts to expand my vocabulary, sometimes "nice" really is the best word for the job. Let me introduce you to two nice scarves that are on their way to meet their nice new owners. Scarf 57 and Scarf 58 couldn't be more different, but they both have nice stories.

Scarf 57 is a custom design for a friend who wanted a gift for her mother-in-law from West Texas. Wouldn't it be nice, she asked me, if we could find a local Texas yarn to make her scarf from? After asking on Facebook and calling around, we ended up at Gauge, a friendly little local yarn shop, where we picked out two lovely skeins of Texas Two Step from White Bear Fibers. This yarn comes from alpacas on the Bluebonnet Hills Alpaca Ranch in Navasota, Texas. As a dyed-in-the-alpaca Texan myself, I loved the concept of this gift and enjoyed every minute of making it. The yarn was perfect to weave with too - very thin but strong - making a lightweight scarf with elegant drape.

And aren't those colors beautiful? White Bear Fibers calls the sagey green "Cedar" and the variegated blue and green "Peaceful Cedar," but by any name they are soothing and sophisticated and subtly striped. (Thank you, Mr. Perryman - it's true that "nice" doesn't quite cut it when describing this yarn.)

But back to the nice stories. Ah, Scarf 58 - my elusive friend. Scarf 58 was dreamed up at the yoga studio where I teach. One of my students, in love with Scarf 17, asked if I could make a similar confection in sparkly pinks and purples. The scarf-to-be was for her niece, who was going through a very difficult time, and she felt the scarf might be a comfort to her. My goodness! What could I possibly love more than to make something comforting for someone who needs comforting?

I had recently heard about dyeing with Kool-Aid, so I thought that would be a fun project. Scarf 56 was the result and though it turned out rather well, it wasn't as sparkly or pink as desired. I started again, this time with pink cotton, purple wool, and lavender sparkles, and everything came out just right. Like some of the other ruffle scarves, Scarf 58 has a wool stripe running down the center, which, when felted, creates the ruffles. Here it is, still flat on the loom:

And here it is at last, all ruffled up:

I think my friend is just the nicest daughter-in-law and my yoga student is the nicest aunt. Not that they're the only nice ones around - I've had gift orders for friends, daughters, moms, newlywed-husbands, and soon-to-be-sister-in-laws, all from very nice people who were nice to buy my scarves. Sorry, Mr. Perryman, it's official: nice people are nice.

Scarf 33: Experimenting with Infinity

I'd seen a lot of infinity scarves popping up on Etsy, so I thought I'd give it a go. Having never knitted or worn an infinity scarf I wasn't really sure what to expect. Scarf 33 was my brave trailblazer and I'm so pleased with the territory it has opened up for me.

Right after making it, I took it for a test drive out to coffee with a math teacher friend. I showed her how it worked and she exclaimed, "It's a Math Scarf!" This made me laugh, and I can't help think of this as my Math Scarf. It's true - it's a lovely example of a mobius strip - but that's not why I love it. It's just so cozy and soft and every time I put it on it looks different.

Big & Tall & Warm for All

One of my yoga students, a tall guy, was complimenting my scarves the other night and asked for an extra long, extra wide scarf to suit his frame. Now, you should know by now that there's little I love more than a special request. He didn't have any specific colors in mind, so I told him I'd bring some yarns to class next week to see what he liked and we'd go from there.

Not content to wait, I went ahead and whipped up these two bad boys. Both are over 7 feet long and woven from thick & fuzzy wools & acrylics (with some mohair, cholorofibre, and other things thrown into the mix). They both have a big presence, making them perfect for taller people or cold northerners who love to wrap themselves in giant scarves.

My Big & Tall Fellas will be making their debut at Mind Body Yoga tomorrow and may visit Etsy later in the week if they don't get snapped up first.

Scarf 20: Texas Landscape

Today I finished a scarf that I designed for the Texas Museum of Fiber Arts. I submitted it for an exhibit called "Texas by the Yard and Yarn - Texas a Fabrication." It will show at 100 Congress (the perfect location for 100 Scarves, right?!) in October and November. It's probably very ambitious of me to believe I might get in, but we have to dream, right? As Isabella Stewart Gardner said, "If you don't aim high, you can't get there."

The design represents the Texas landscape - the rivers running through the hills and mountains, then flattening out and eventually running into the Gulf. It's my first design that's meant to represent something else, and it was an interesting creative challenge for me. It began almost 10 feet long and then I used the same ruffling technique from Scarf 17 to create the hills and mountains, leaving it just under 6 feet in the end. I ran a little line of extra shiny blue through the deeper blue cotton to create a sparkling effect in the river and ocean.

A combination of two variegated yarns made the forests and plains - one in various shades of brown, the other browns and greens. I used the same weft yarn for the whole scarf - a juniper green cotton.

My ultimate goal is always to make a scarf that will feel good and look good, so I wanted to recreate the Texas landscape within those parameters. I'm very pleased with how it turned out.

Here are a few little moments in the life of Scarf 20.

Henry called tonight from a walk around the neighborhood to say, "I keep coming around a bend or over a hill and seeing a scene straight from your scarf! It really does look like the Texas landscape." Score. :)

Scarf 20 will stay off the market until I find out if it's made it into the show. Wish us luck!

Easy Being Green in Scarf Fourteen

In her profile for Ravelry (an online knitting community), my friend described her favorite colors as: "green, green, blue-purple, and did I mention green?" Scarf 14 was inspired by her unapologetic love for this most amiable color. Green is the color of new growth - so fitting for this project of mine involving so much personal growth. It is the first sign of spring poking through the muck of winter. Hello, green!

Lest this scarf take us into leprechaun territory, I mixed the bright Kelly Green (hey, my color!) with a variegated green & brown. It's still mostly green - the brown sneaks in through little dark stripes and subtler, lighter stretches - but it feels more appropriate for fall and winter. It will still perk you up on a dark day, but will actually go with your winter wardrobe.

Speaking of growth, don't you just love how the scarf grows from this tangle of yarns to the soft and suave accessory pictured above?

Scarf 14 was sold in my Etsy shop. It's going to be an early birthday present for someone who loves scarves and all things green. You can just imagine how happy that makes me.