WIP: Harry Potter Scarf

My stepfather is headmaster of the Foote School and for Christmas asked for a scarf in the school's colors. I wanted to make him one with intarsia feet and/or the school motto (“Laete cognoscam et laete docebo"), but he's got to look respectable....

or something :) (the phoenix is my mom.)

Anyway. In the end we settled on a Harry Potter scarf design of alternating color blocks. The obvious choice was plain stockinette, but what about the curling it'd do? A friend told me about tubular knitting, where I'd basically knit a scarf in the round on straight needles. It's such an awesome method!! I can't wait to make gloves and other stuff with it! And super-easy, I highly recommend it. You just work as if in k1p1 rib, but when you bring the yarn purlwise, slip the stitch instead of purling it, then bring the yarn back behind to knit. (To make my next project easier, I'll make it in reverse stockinette so I won't have to move the yarn--just p1sl1.) I was having trouble seeing it so I made a swatch which helped immensely, I recommend it if you can't envision it. I also used it to practice binding off with an open end, which is slow, but very doable. I haven't even started to think of all the possibilities yet. Here, I tried to take a picture of its tubular nature:


Here's my progress to date. The thing about tubular knitting, since you are making something double thick, it takes FOR-EVER to get length. So really that scarf is twice as long as this!


I've also never worked with plain old acrylic like this. The two colors are different brands, which have different degrees of stretchiness. I am trying to do an inch a day, which feels so painfully slow compared to everything else I've ever made...

Note too the nice expensive needles. I had some plastic ones I inherited from my ex's mom which snapped like twigs in the cold weather we've been having lately.