3 Danica scarves, 2 pairs of Dashing and a new Nintendo DS fooooooor me!

I stopped by Target to see Travis last week and as usual, he was being his clingy self and I ended up loitering in electronics for an hour or so. While he was busy with a guest, I wandered over to the Nintendo case and caught sight of the DSs in stock. This jolted my memory of commercials that I have been seeing lately for academic "games" for the DS. Memory enhancers, vocabulary training; you know, not just your typical glassy eyed, stream of spittle inducing games. I have an SP but the damn thing is so small that I don't really like playing it anymore. And yeah, that whole fickle with novel toys thing again. By the time Travis got back to me, I had decided that I wanted, nay, NEEDED one of these fantastic toys (under the guise of wanting the educational games, mais oui). Blaine eventually wandered by and, as usual, I was given a heaping plate of shit about not having his gloves done yet. Of course, being the ass that he is, Travis had to chime in and harp on me about his scarf which led promptly into him begging me, again, to make him new gloves. You know, the same as the ones that he lost a month after I knit them. As I began to puff up like a pissed off porcupine, he desperately scrambled to distract me before the inevitable screaming fit. In his haste, he offered a deal to me. In exchange for a scarf, hat and glove set for each of the boys, they would get me a Nintendo DS for Christmas. With suspicion leaking from my slitted eyes, I analyzed the eager and hopeful looks on their faces. Still in the thrall of the shiny new toy just mere feet from me, I agreed.

So began the hunt for a scarf interesting enough to keep me entertained enough to want to knit it twice in a row but not too challenging that it would discourage me halfway through and become a burden that I didn't enjoy. I cam across Andre on knitty and thought it would be perfect for Blaine, but with the miles of stockinette knit in the round, I was wary. The color work at the beginning and end would have been interesting but I could see myself knitting three rows and realizing ten minutes later that I had drifted off into my infamous lala land and thusly never finish it in time for Christmas. Moving on, I found Danica, also on Knitty and knew instantly that it would be perfect for Travis. The more I looked at it, I realized that it was the perfect scarf for both of them. The patter was just right and with the two color blocks, I could make each scarf in it's own color theme that suited each of the boys. Half an hour later, I was at Michael's, picking out my four colors of Paton's Wool. Grey and black for Travis and brown and tan for Blaine.

I am now a little more than halfway through Travis' Danica and I have about six inches done on Blaine's. This pattern is so much fun and just the right level of interest and challenge. I have not learned to purl backward as a lot of people have because, well, because I really never thought about it. I am thinking about it now. Since I have been working on this project so much, Logan has seen it many times. I realized after about the fifth time the told me how much he liked it that I would be adding another Danica to my Christmas knitting list. I think I have decided to find a really nice variegated yarn for his instead of two colors. I am very happy to say that I don't see myself getting bored with this pattern any time soon.