Done: Hubby's Chunky Cabled Scarf

Well, that picture doesn't do it justice at all, but you should be accustomed to that from me by now.

I finished Hubby's scarf Sunday evening. yippee!

He was rather disheveled when I presented it to him. Privately I thought he looked cute, but I recognized that he wasn't in a photographable state.

Photographable? Is that a real word? I think I'm looking for photogenic.

Anyway.

Project Stats
Pattern: Lamar scarf by Gale Zucker (free online!) Modification: I cast on an extra repeat (12 stitches) because he wanted it wider. So 48 not 36.
Yarn: Debbie Bliss Donegal Luxury Tweed Aran. 4 balls blue, 3 balls green. wool and angora, 96 yards each. Held doubled throughout. I had a 3 gram blob of yarn left over, mostly green.
Needles: US 11
Finished dimensions: Between 7 and 7.5 inches wide. About 50 inches long.

Since I worked it from both ends I wound up doing a three-needle bind off to attach them. Yes, it left a ridge on the inside, but it must not be too noticeable since I think Hubby had it on "inside out" last night. I was going to graft the two halves together, but couldn't get the ribbing to line up. Probably something about joining two tops. I couldn't be bothered trying to figure out a work around.

It took me most of the day Sunday to weave in all the ends from the stripe changes. However I was working on it in bursts between doing laundry and other chores, so total work time probably wasn't as much as I thought.

The pattern was easy, once I got going. I kept making silly mistakes when I first started. I think I worked the first cable when I should have worked the second and that hosed everything up.

Just stay alert and you'll be fine. It sort of flew along because of the chunky yarn.

The yarn is nice. Not the softest I've every worked with, but it didn't make me itch either. It does go rather thick and thin, which wasn't always leveled out because I was holding it doubled. Often it seemed the thin spots matched up! However, the ribbing and cable did seem to compensate for the variation.

It was a little hard to work the cable. Maybe I should have been on a larger needle. I mean, I know working the stitches off the cable needle can be tight, but this seemed especially so. Which is a long winded way of saying it's not a very springy yarn.

It has some angora content, but it's not really fuzzy. It does have some texture, which I think makes the puppy fur blend in nicely. Maybe it will soften up and bloom a bit after it gets washed. But I don't foresee washing it any time soon. It's a scarf, after all, how dirty will it get?

I wish I had done less blue at the beginning of the scarf. When he's wearing it the scarf looks mostly green because of the way the stripes were distributed. That's fine, but I'm kind of surprised I ran out of blue first since I felt like I had more of it. However, I'm glad I decided to work both end at the same time. I'd be going wild if all that green had ended up at the other end. Frankly, I'm not sure Hubby would have liked it to be that random either.

Well Received
Hubby declared it "awesome" when it was finally done. It is a good length for just hanging around his neck, or tossing one side cavalierly over his shoulder.

It is a little too short to fold in half and stick the ends through the loop. And probably too chunky. He tried it and it looked like a neck brace. But I think he mainly just hangs the scarf around his neck anyway.

He seemed pleased with it regardless.

Fashion Plate
However, when he was getting ready this morning he grabbed his old scarf, which is shades of orange, green, and brown.

When I gave him the evil eye he happily explained that now that he has two scarves he can kind of match them to his outfit. Since he had on an orange and blue tie his old scarf made more sense.

Although this was charming it was also worrisome as it means he might be developing the idea of increasing the frequency of his scarf requests in order to have multiple colors and designs.