Oh. My. Word.

Scarves.  They require a special kind of insanity, I'm convinced.  If I ever do this again, I'm choosing a bulky yarn.  Wow. 

Here's the scarf when I ran out of the first skein of yarn:

Sorry it's sideways.  That was last Wednesday; it was three inches wide.  And I thought "Oh, no."  Six inches is sort of a bare minimum for a scarf, it seems to me.  So I spliced on the second skein, and started knitting again. 

I knitted.  And knitted.  And knitted.  Until I thought I was going to go crazy, because I had so many other things to do, and all I was doing was knitting this scarf, all the time!   GAH!  And it was only four inches wide by Saturday night, and I posted on Ravelry hoping SOMEONE would tell me that was ok, and I could just stop. 

And while lots of nice people said that I should just stop, no one told me that four inches was a normal width for a man's scarf.  And honestly, if I was going to pour hours of my life into this thing, it had darn well better be something my brother will LOVE and wear FOREVER when it's done!  Too skinny wasn't an option.

So, I took it to church and worked on it there.  And I went to a friend's house Monday morning and knitted on it for FOUR hours.  Finally, I said "This has to be enough, because I have to stop or I will go crazy."  So I started binding it off.  I worked on that for an hour at my friend's, and in the car for an hour that night, and while I was talking to my midwife at my appointment, and dudes, it still wasn't done.

Monday was the day it was supposed to go in the mail, and Monday night at nine I still had about two feet left to bind off.  But, I persevered, and let me tell you - I'm swearing off scarves for a while.

But look!  It's pretty!

And the model is pretty sexy, too...  :-)

So, I sent it off today with a tag reading:  "This scarf contains 49,290 stitches, and required approximately 35 hours of my life to complete.  Wear it with pride and the knowledge that you are loved!"

Want to know how I figured that out?  I cast on 530 stitches, and knit 93 rows (counted the ribs and multiplied times 3).  Each rib required roughly an hour, and the bind-off took closer to three.  That, my friends, is insanity, in an alpaca/nylon blend.

It's really soft though.