Special Olympics Scarf

For the last couple years, Jeff and I (along with others in my knitting group) have been making scarves for the Special Olympics. The idea is that the scarves will be handed out to all the athletes at the opening ceremonies of the games and then they can take them home. When the program was conceived in four years ago, the call went out for 5,000 scarves. Knitters all over the US and world responded and donated over 60,000 scarves. A huge effort. The Special Olympics says what colors the scarves will be but the pattern is left up to the knitter. I've seen some really cool things done. One of the girls in the group did a double knit scarf with the alternating colors making blocks. Jeff is making one that will have the date imprinted into the scarf (I will have to post a picture, It's incredible).

And here is my scarf for the year. I like the red and blue far better than last year's blue and turquoise. I knit it lengthwise to create the stripes. I'm a slow knitter so I started it back at Thanksgiving and just finished it now. But I figured I'd share. I hope that it makes some child very happy. I need to do more knitting related charity. The ARL is always looking for knitted things for the animals. Soldiers are always in need of hats and gloves. Babies are always in need of caps. And the poor worldwide are always in need of warm woolen things (like mittens...these are a few of my favorite things). So I'm going to try to be more active in 2012 as a knitter for charity. I don't need everything I make and although I give away most of my knitting as gifts, more of that should be for those less fortunate.