Write right right?

When a two-year-old requests a hat and scarf, how can a knitter resist? Even knowing it was unlikely that she would ever be willing to keep them on in the cold, we forged ahead. She picked out the yarn: some cheap acrlic that I bought fo 99 cents at a thrift store and some hot pink Cascade superwash wool. She hugged them to her and said gleefully, "My favorite." On the first day, every hour or so she would ask, "are they done?" I'm not a fast knitter so even as small as the would be getting them done in a day was impossible. It didn't help that the first one didn't have enough room between the cuff and the start of the thumb. She was dutifully exuberant when the mittens were finally done. She actually wore them long enough to get a picture taken. As predicted, however, she took them off just a few minutes after getting out into the cold. Why do kids do that, anyway? I would think that would be a self-teaching sort of lesson.

I stumbled on an interesting pattern with a lot of potential for the scarf. It's probably a named pattern somewhere. Here's the formula:

It's knit lengthwise. Cast on 150 to 250 stitches depending on the desired length. For preceission, make a swatch and figure out how many stitches per inch you are knitting.

Row 1: knit

Row 2: knit 5, (knit 1, yarn over) repeat to last five stitches, knit 5

Row 3: knit

Row 4: knit 5, (yarn over, knit 1) repeat to last five stitchees, knit 5

Row 5: knit

Row 6: repeat Row 2

Knit across until scarf is desired width, keeping in mind that you will repeat the above rows in reverse.

For the final 6 rows:

Row 1: knit 5, (knit 1, yarn over) repeat to last five stitches, knit 5

Row 2: knit

Row 3: knit 5, (yarn over, knit 1) repeat to last five stitches, knit 5

Row 4: knit

Row 5: knit 5, (knit 1, yarn over) repeat to last five stitches, knit 5

Row 6: knit

Bind off

This creates an airy, lacey edge with solid knitting in the middle. As an alternative, the middle could be done in seed stitch, or some other appealing solid pattern.

To make the scarf self-fringing, cut the yarn after each row leaving a tail of 8 inches or so. The tails will have to be tied together to keep them from unraveling.

I like the way the pattern looks, but mine isn't as wide as I would have liked because I was concerned about running out of yarn. Cori Jane was happy to dance around with it for the pictures, but it has since been sitting in the scarf basket by the door. Oh well, it's a good prototype.

On a non-knitting note, I am a novelist! Albeit an unpublished one, but still I have officially completed a 50,000 word novel in less than a month. I took the challenge issued by the National Novel Writing Month and beat the clock by three days. It seemed an unsurmountable task when I signed up in October. With children and work and a house to keep up I had my doubts about the feasability. I had to give up much of the little television watching time I get and my knitting production slowed down. There were times when the words flowed like water down a waterfall and other times when I felt I was in a dark room with no idea where the lights were.

Throughout, I had a husband who took me seriously and believed I would do it. The story is about a woman raising 4 children while renovating a seriously broken down house. She's not me, but she could be one of my friends. I figured since I had to write fast, I'd write what I know.

Finishing the story was the hard part, now as my writing husband pointed out, comes the "nearly impossible part," editing and selling it! Is it good enough? Maybe. Having come this far, I'll push it a little more.

But for now, I'm going to clean up my neglected house and make up some lost time on my Secrets of the Stole while getting ready for Christmas.