Scarves, Scarves, Everywhere Scarves - Part 1

My sister showed us how to knit these cute frilly scarves over the holidays. We decided to make one for each of the drill team members. We knew we had to hurry so we could have them made before the competitions so we could give them as a "good luck" gift.

We tried to buy the color we wanted online and they had none available. We then called all the craft stores around the larger cities in the state. We were unable to find more than three anywhere. 

We called and had them look up how many would be on the next trucks and at 9 a.m. the next morning, the truck would be unloaded and on the shelves. I had to spend three hours driving around town to buy enough of the one color to have enough to make the scarves for the team.

They have some really cute colors and we thought we could have Princess number 4 sell some around the neighborhood as a fund raiser for her Thailand Service Mission trip. My sisters and their kids, along with several of my Princesses, all helped make them. Luckily, my older sister had just purchased a bunch of knitting needles. She bought 2 sided bamboo. When my sister from out of state was returning home, we purchased some fun colors so her kids could each make one for themselves on the long drive home. 

I didn't want to spend the money on knitting needles as we had some at home and she didn't want to spend money on buying some just for the trip home as she had some at home already as well.

With that, I brainstormed what we could use that was cheap instead of knitting needles. I thought of bar-b-cue wooden skewers but they are too thin. I thought of wooden spoon handles but we would have to sharpen one end and they are longer and still not cheap. Someone my sister knows said they used chop sticks. They still cost and splinter. So, I said a prayer and headed to the dollar store. I looked at the cooking isle and found nothing.

I did the electronic isle, still nothing. I then thought of colored pencils and thought that perhaps I could use them on the dark colors so they lead wouldn't stain light colors. Pens would leak ink. Then, I had the perfect thought. Mechanical pencils are perfect. 

My sister used bamboo double ended knitting needles and we kept losing stitches off both ends so she used rubber bands to keep the knitting on. The mechanical pencils have the little clip that holds it onto a pocket and it is perfect to hold the stitches on when you aren't working on it so they don't fall off. Since using them, we have had far less problems dropping a stitch. Tomorrow, I will show how to make the scarves. Instead of a few dollars for each set of knitting needles, it was less than $.25 for a pair of pencils. 

The girls were fighting over the leads in the pencils for their favorite mechanical pencils and we still had the pencils to use for knitting. In my opinion, they are better than knitting needles as they hold the stitch and are small enough to fit in my purse. The needles are slick, the stitches fall off and they are longer so they keep getting stuck into the finished scarf where as the small pencils have the rubber eraser and don't tend to get caught and keep the stitches on.

I am still sick and have been in bed most of the last two days. Making scarves has been about what I could handle. I haven't been this sick forever. Can't seem to shake the sinus and lung issues. Crazy stuff going around. Even with all my knowledge of health and healing, this is a hard flu... I am sad for babies and elderly with this thing out there.