kmkat and her kneedles: Charity

My contributions to Norma's Red Scarf Project. From the left:

QuasiPseudoNeoNoro (say it, it's fun!)
Yarn: Plymouth Boku (95% wool, 5% nylon; 99 yds/skein), 2 skeins each of colors 6 and 11. This yarn is clearly a copy of Noro Silk Garden, minus the VM and some of the silk; it is also about $6/skein vs. $8/skein for the Noro :) It made a good substitute in my mind. The scarf is lightweight but squishy and warm. I was afraid it might be too scratchy to be comfortable, but it isn't. I wet-blocked it using Eucalan in the soak water which probably helped.
Pattern: Just like the Noro scarf. 1x1 ribbing, slip the first stitch of each row purlwise, alternate skeins every 2 rows. Knitting this was positively addictive; I wanted to know how the colors would play out. I kept thinking I would need to break the yarn and take out lengths that didn't contrast enough, but that proved not to be necessary. Even when the colors of the two skeins were very close, the subtle differences still created discernible stripes.
Needles: KnitPicks Options, US#7.

Chocolate-covered Cherries
Yarn: A hodgepodge. The purpley red is the leftover alpaca from the scarf on the right, plus another skein of KnitPicks Andean Silk in the Sangria colorway (which turned out to be exactly the same shade as the leftover alpaca, but solid with a slight silky gleam instead of woolly and a bit heathery). The brown is 85 yards of Skacel Adagio (70% baby llama, 30% silk; 110ys/50gr per skein). The ivory is Rowan Kid Classic (70% lambswool/26% kid mohair/4% nylon), color 828; I still have most of the 153yd/50gr skein left. This scarf is meltingly soft.
Pattern: Garter stitch, knit lengthwise. Cast on 270 st, leaving a tail of the approximate length that you want the fringe to be. Break yarn, ditto. Knit every row, leaving the fringe-length tail at beginning and end of every row. Change colors as it suits you. Bind-off with Elizabeth Zimmerman's sewn cast off. I made the brown stripes 3 rows wide so as to have a garter ridge on each side and to eliminate any possibility of the scarf having a wrong or right side. The white stripes are just one row. The purpley-red ones are at least three rows. The scarf isn't quite finished; I need to neaten up the ends and trim the fringe. Mañana.
Needles: KnitPicks Options, US#7.

Ribbed and Striped Alpaca
Yarn: Filatura Lanarota Puno (100% alpaca, 100 yds/50gr), colorway 1526, most of three balls. I bought this yarn last year at Smiley's Yarns internet sale ($2.99/skein), intending it for the RSP, but a proper scarf really would have required another ball; I didn't figure that out soon enough. So the yarn sat -- and sat -- until I bought some other yarn for the stripes: KnitPicks Andean Silk (55% superfine alpaca, 23% silk, 22% merino wool; 96yds/50gr per skein), one ball each of Navy and Hyacinth, plus a bit from a second ball of Hyacinth. This scarf is also sinfully cuddly.
Pattern: Standard scarf, 2x2 rib; slip the first stitch of each row purlwise. Narrower stripes are 4 rows each; wider ones are... wider.
Needles: KnitPicks Options, US#7.

The Orphan Foundation folks say they want unisex scarves so I tried to make these as non-gender-specific as possible. I may have succeeded a bit too well -- the one on the left is definitely masculine. I'm pretty sure the OFA folks will have no problem with that.

Now to gather some other goodies to go into the packages with them. Starbucks cards and chocolate, natch. The hodgepodge scarf reminds me of chocolate-covered cherries, but those are difficult to find in local stores. I shall persevere, though. Matching the chocolate to the scarf is key.