Travel Scarves

I've returned from my trip with two more scarves to my credit, and one still on the needles.

The green one is a variation on Nick's Boring Scarf on Ravelry (that's the desinger's name -- it doesn't bore me at all!).

I used two colors alternately, so in order to keep both sides roughly symmetrical, I made sure every other square was reversed (which means you alternate which side the front is). The only tricky part was starting the second color on each new square. Instead of cutting the yarn each time, I left a slack loop and when I started the second color, I just knit in the slack loop on the back as I went.

The other one was inspired by the tilted blocks scarf in Knitting New Scarves, although I used my own guess at the pattern (I have the book, but it wasn't with me on the trip).

 
I cast on 15 stitches, and then cast off 5 at one end and cast on 5 at the other end to make each block. I sorted the yarns I had with me from dark to light, and started with the two darkest, and then with each subsequent block, dropped the darker yarn and added the next one, to try to get some color continuity.

I also varied the stitch patterns but kept to variations on knit and purl (garter, seed, etc.).

I'm glad scarves are still in style, because it is blissful to listen to podcasts on my mp3 player while knitting. Plane flights go by quickly.