Post Modern Texas

Knitting away on a double knit scarf for my daughter and she the most generous child in the world asks: "can you make one just like it for Megan". "Sure" says the most magnanimous mom in the world.

"only do a texas theme kind of thing." Hereby embarking on a rather typical mother daughter discovery of what "just like" REALLY means. First, all of this is discussed via Gmail chat, not exactly a visual medium. Second, we have a history of this sort of project not exactly working out to everyones satisfaction.

Texas, my favorite state in the union, most of the time.

mom: "Red, White and Blue?"
kid: "well she mostly wears black." "but she needs to mix it up a little."

mom: "I see, so toned down texas?"
kid: "right, but maybe the state of texas?"

mom: "uh huh." [I hate intarsia knitting.]

couple of days pass - I venture out to the only needle work store I've found in Jeddah, nothing speaks Texas to me.

me: "I'm stumped on Megan's scarf. the yarn shop has a pretty limited supply of yarn. nothing screams texas" "there is some very pretty mohair in BRIGHT red. and BLUE, and WHITE." "there is also a very nice grey wool that I could knit shapes into?" "not color blocks - but texture changes."

kid: "well, she wouldn't wear anything bright anyway" "like i told you... so i dunno, just do something normal in black/white/grey"

me: "thats what I was thinking. but black yarn sucks. and grey would be very pretty." (um, in case you're getting all hot about black yarn sucking, I'm getting blinder all the time - can't see what I'm knitting with black yarn.)
kid: "k"

me: "I was thinking a repeating star motif + the state of texas + a steer skull"
kid: "steer."
me: "dead cow. long horns."
kid: "dead is beef. steer is longhorn" "i think, i dunno, w/e"

me: "kay"

kid: "i'd just do stars" "or maybe like,"
me: "even better."

kid: "the tips would be a block with one big star, and the length would be two stripes somehow?" "like, with opposing rows or something?" "perpendicular rows to create two stripes, only in grey."
me: "I can do that."

kid: "like the flag, i should've said"
me: "so it's the freaking texas flag but in grey."
kid: "right"
me: "no problem'oh"

kid: "ok well i'm going to go take a shower"
me: "and fast and easy and it might get done."

So some serious searching found no decent star pattern charts on the internet, or any way not in the scale I was looking for. Knitting figures with texture is a little trickier than it sounds, so I charted it out and um, edited the chart after knitting it twice to get the results I was looking for. It's hard to see in the photos - but there are horizontal stripes on the left and vertical stripes on the right.

And so the perfect post-modern adaptation of the Texas flag. in a scarf no less. Which I made up from some stash yarn I brought back from Raleigh (purchased at a yarn store in Mount Vernon, WA - 16 years ago).

The pattern is here: Megan's Post Modern Texas Scarf in pdf format. If you have any problems with it email me. It is only the second pattern I've written down.