A tale of two Knit-a-longs

In January, I was participating in two KALs (Knit-a-longs) organised through ravelry groups. One was a gothalong, which simply meant knitting with yarn from Rainy Days and Wooly Dogs. The other was a stripey sock KAL, which had helped inspire me to knit all those stripey socks in the fall.  These 2 KALs are very compatible and I could have so easily double-dipped by knitting some gothstripes into socks.

But of course, the knitting-controller aspect of my brain went rogue and completely discarded that plan. I couldn't decide which gothstripe to knit up, and what I really wanted to knit up was my Absinthe. I had just discovered a delightful little pattern named Hitchhiker, and that had to be my gothalong project.

The hitchhiker was so named because the designer's prototype knitted up with 42 points. My version knit up with 38 points, and I'm just so happy with it. It makes a really snuggly scarf, and I find myself wearing it nearly every day. Instead of Douglas Adams, it reminds me of Anne McCaffrey books, with the scarf looking like the tail of a little green firelizard perched on its human's neck.

Once I'd attended to the gothalong, I found myself with a week left of January and the desire to knit one more pair for the stripe-along. I had plenty of yarn leftover from the neon anklets, and cranked out a new pair of neon socks for myself. I bound off the cuffs in the 10 o'clock hour on the final day of January.