Final Notes: Knitted up very nicely, very easy to keep tension even, made a lovely dense scarflet (I was using needles a size or so smaller than recommended). I used 3x50g balls of yarn, three buttons (random ones from my stash), and it’s the perfect size to button around the DHs neck. I think I might see if I can get an undyed lighter yarn (maybe alpaca?) and make a long one for me with two cables instead of three. Or maybe even one, to go super-skinny. Yum.

17-Sep: Ok, bad yarn choice at the start. Was using a sport-weight yarn but… it’s kinda wussy. Might go find something with more heft and restart when I’ve done that.

19-Sep: Relaunched with new yarn. Hopefully less craptacular. It’s nowhere near as pink as the photo would make you think: it’s actually a three-strand yarn, made up of a strand each of rose, burgandy, and grey. It’s just that the rose stands out like you wouldn’t believe in the photo. Dinosaurs are purely for your entertainment.

23-Sep: now six repeats into the pattern. The old ducks at the Friday craft group I’ve fallen into were terribly impressed that I’d only started knitting a few weeks ago. Thank goodness I’ve figured out how to turn knit into purl and vice versa by dropping the stitch and picking it up again the right way around… I got distracted every time an octogenarian wanted to know what I was knitting. Also, the new photo (#2) is a much better representation of the colours, maybe just a little warmer than real life.

28-Sep: Onto ball of yarn #2, which is lovely - I’m getting about 10” out of a ball. Should be a nice five foot scarf when I’m done with it.

Of course, about five rows past a cable cross, I noticed that one of my “k6” sections had somehow become “k5”… and the stitch was dropped IN THE CABLE CROSS ROW. Pants and damnation. Drop the section off the needles, rip back until I count six stitches, and with a crochet hook, split ring stitch holders, and sheer bloody-minded determination I managed to not only pick up all the necessary stitches but also cross the damn cable. Now I can’t actually tell where the error was, so I suppose that means I’m officially capable of fixing my knitting screwups. That’s fifteen minutes of my life I’m not getting back, though.

29-Sep: I suspect that I have actually travelled to an alternate universe where the only form of entertainment is knitting. I’m now on to my 16th repeat of the cable pattern, and have almost doubled the project length in the last two days. For someone who hasn’t previously knitted, this is becoming a bit consuming. I’ve got maybe two repeats left before the next ball is required, and I’m trying to figure out whether to keep going tonight until I run out of yarn. Only question is: if I do, will I oversleep and miss the start of craft group tomorrow? The old ladies will be terribly disappointed if I don’t show up.

30-Sep: ball three has magically worked its way onto the scarf. Now officially one third into the project.

1-Oct: DH Decided that it was too heavy to make a full scarf, so it’s been changed into a button-up neckwarmer. This means, of course, that it’s DONE. I even managed to do the cast off/cast on buttonholes and they don’t look dodgy at all! The buttonholes were made by casting off two stitches in the middle of each cable, then casting them on again in the next row.