Scarf of Unicorn Barf

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, I know... but still!  A few years ago I was expanding my brother's minimal store of winter wear items before he left southern California for the snow laden winters of the mile-high city.  Again, any opportunity to knit something that might actually be used fulfills almost a spiritual yearning.  The story goes that I asked my brother to come with me to pick out some yarn for a scarf.  When we got to the store I started looking at bold solid colors, remembering that when my brother worked at a movie theater, he enjoying startlingly bright ties.  Roadwork orange?  Truly a must have.  It says:  Caution:  Awesome Ahead" in his mind.  About this time I hear a triumphant, "found it!" from across the aisle.  What can I say?  My brother never fails to astonish me with his fashion forward thinking.  Not deterred by the word 'novelty' and it's connotations when used in the phrase 'novelty yarn', my brother had selected a few skeins of the unsubtle Lion Brand Multicolored Boulce in what color?  Jellybean.   Oh yes, Jellybean.  At this point I would like to remind the reader that my brother is straight.

I ended up knitting him the scarf while holding one strand of this *cough* unique yarn, as well as a strand of Caron's Simply Soft white yarn.  Though Ray couldn't have cared less about how I knitted the scarf, I decided at least I'd try a new pattern.  So here it is, knitted on a bias, using the Commuter Scarf pattern by Ruth Ellen found for free on her blog.  The finished product reminded me of the Pillsbury Funfetti cakes my brother and I used to make occasionally; so I affectionately called it a funfetti scarf.  My brother was delighted, I was glad to have made him happy, but had mixed feelings about the remaining yarn that I had no clue what to do with.

Enter Lexi.  A few months had passed since Ray had left, and she was looking through my embarassingly large yarn stash after I complained of a lack of knitting projects.  "Are you saving this yarn for anything?" Lexi shyly asked.  Instead of telling her that I was tempted to see if I could knit a kitty litterbox out of it, I told her that it was merely left over from a scarf I made my brother.  Her enthusiasm for the scarf was undampable, despite my best efforts.  This time it was paired with some black yarn, and done in a seed stitch (not that you can tell with a boucle yarn, particularly one that is jelly bean colored).  Just like my brother, Lexi was delighted with the scarf, and was even willing to let me capture photographic evidence of her wearing it.  For my ravelry page, this scarf ended up with the title, "Unicorn Barf", aptly named by her boyfriend.  As a side note, shockingly, this deafeningly loud yarn has been discontinued.