The Red Scarf Project

About a month ago, my mother discovered this great charity knitting project, the Red Scarf Project, which provides care packages and (you guessed it) red scarves for college students from foster care.  (The project is an offshoot of Foster Care to Success, an organization which provides assistance to former foster care children, including college scholarships).  As a college student, I remember how great it was to get care packages from home, and can only imagine how important these care packages are to students who have little or no family support.  Each knitter may send up to 5 scarves (at the appropriate collection time; check their website for specific details) and Mom has already finished 3!

This led to the following phone call:
"ring ring"
Me: "What's up?"
Mom: "Do you want to knit some scarves for the Red Scarf Project?"
Me: "Sure, I guess, if I have time."
Mom: "Oh good, I'm on my way back from the yarn store; I bought you a bunch of red yarn to get started!  Come get it later today!"
Me: "...okay.."
Later that day... she hands me a bag with 7 skeins of various yarns.
(I have lots of phone conversations with her that involve her calling to ask the one question that just occurred to her).

Grandpa Scarf

After looking around at several scarf patterns (there are some great suggested scarf patterns on the Red Scarf Project Ravelry group page) I found this one up for testing.  It features a braid cable border, and a rather intense (if you haven't worked cables before) cable in a cable center panel.  The pattern is entirely written out, which I found slightly irritating; it was my fault though, for signing up for a knit test marked "written out pattern" only.  (I will now take two seconds to voice my profound love of charted patterns, especially for cabling, because you can visualize where each cable is supposed to go while knitting.  This prevents the I-cabled-the-wrong-way-and-just-noticed-after-knitting-40-more-rows-issue from occurring.  Which may have occurred when I was knitting this scarf. Gold stars to anyone who can point out which center cable repeat I screwed up!   I took the mistake as a from the universe that the scarf was not destined to be perfect and have ignored it since it's discovery.  But my point is, I like charts).

Apart from this, the design is really lovely; there's a cute little XO (hugs and kisses!) cable, hidden in the last bit of the braid cable edging.  I love that it's a secret message to your scarf recipient!  I do recommend dropping down a needle size, as the scarf has the potential to be very wide.  (It's the kind of scarf you wear outside when it is -40 degrees).  The original pattern calls for size 8 needles; I used size 6's and got 7.5 inches across.

I used 4 skeins of Lion Brand's Vanna's Choice yarn in cranberry for the scarf.  Vanna's Choice has never been one of my favorite yarns, because it is acrylic and tends to fuzz with use.  It holds up better than Wool-Ease, though, and fit the parameters of the Red Scarf Project people just fine.  If I was going to knit the scarf again for someone special (and not as a RSP) I might consider using something like Cascade 220 or KnitPicks' Wool of the Andes, which would show off the cables beautifully.

As for the Red Scarf Project, I'll probably knit a few more scarves this year, probably with more simple patterns.  What would you knit for the project?