Amazingly, in the middle of all this craziness, I did manage to finish my brother's scarf. (The purpose of this crappy picture is only to show you just how long it is after blocking.)
Yarn: Cascade 220 (100% Peruvian highland wool), colors 8393/Navy and 7827/Goldenrod, approximately 2.5 skeins each
Needles: 16" US 7 (4.5 mm) Addi Turbo circs
Started/Completed: August 27/September 25
Dimensions: 8" wide by approximately 93" long, excluding fringe
My brother rarely requests any hand-knit items, so when he does ask for something, I make sure to deliver. This summer, he asked if I could knit him a Harry Potter-esque scarf in his school colors for his final year at college. Bearing in mind that brother grows a beard in the winter just to keep his face warm, I figured a tube scarf was in order, with a double thickness for maximum warmth.
I kept the pattern really simple: I cast on what seemed like a good number of stitches to fill up the 16" needle (which turned out out to be 90) and purled the middle stitch and the last stitch to create a fold line on either side of the scarf. I changed colors every six inches and knit until I was just about out of yarn and it seemed long enough (that turned out to be 12 stripes). Were it not for the fact that a half skein of the navy yarn went missing somewhere in the middle, I would have made it even longer, but it turned out to be long enough in the end. I found some leftover navy Cascade from my dad's birthday sweater that I used for the fringe, and then I blocked the heck out of it.