Cast-onitis

The first knitting project I ever started was a scarf. My mom took me to Mrs. Blaufarb's yarn store on First Street and we picked out a pair of US-8 aluminum needles and two skeins of purple heathered yarn--I didn't know enough to hang onto the ballbands, but I think it might have been Cascade 220. I went home and my mom taught me to knit. I swatched. I ripped out. I swatched some more. And then I started a ribbed scarf. Over a year later, it's about two and a half feet long and still on the needles. I'll finish it someday--I will, after all, need my size 8s again at some point, and putting the scarf on stitch holders counts as admitting defeat--but it's a little scratchy and it doesn't seem very warm, and it's just going to have to be a "someday" project. I've sworn, after getting stuck at the halfway point, never to knit another scarf.

But then I came to work today, and my neck is cold.

I think I'm going to head over to Article Pract later and see what they have in the way of "soft and pretty." I was thinking about a cabled scarf, but then I found this, which is cool and unusual and has an easy-to-memorize stitch pattern. So I'll cast on and start it and see how I feel about it, and maybe it'll end up kooky and so-called, and maybe I'll end up with classic and cabled. Or something totally different. Because, you know, it's not like I have anything else crafty going on, like, say, a pair of green socks, or maybe a cute flowery A-line skirt. And it's not like all of the shows on TV are new and non-knit-worthy right now. So, you know, it's a perfect time for a patterned project! Excellent!

At least my neck will be warm.