Doesn't hurt the untroubled spirit.

Sometime last week or maybe this past weekend I finally finished the scarf I’ve been knitting. Seems like I’ve been working on it for just about ever, but looking at the calendar it was begun sometime mid-April. Ok, not forever, but still quite rather slow.

Here’s the finished product:

And here’s the scarf’s story:

One of my close h.s. friends’ families (well its all because of her mom specifically) has alpacas. Facts about alpacas: They, by necessity, are sheared every year. Alpaca fiber is considered an exotic fiber and is quite expensive.

Now these alpacas are pets and so their fiber isn’t necessary of the best quality or anything like that. But for Mrs. D it has particularly sentimental value. And so she’s kept all of the shearings from each year while on and off searching for something to be done with it.

At some point she somehow connected with someone the result of which was three skeins of yarn. This is progress, but no one in the D household is much of crafters. And then someone recalled little ‘ol crafty me.

I happily accepted the task, excited to use quality yarn (my normal is the cheapest non-yucky yarn I can find). And I set about trying to figure out what Mrs. D would like for me to make for her. At first the answer was “whatever”, but after a bit she picked out the scarf pattern.

Given the weight of the yarn (quite thin) my thought had been something lacey. The flaw was that I’ve never knit lace before. So when Mrs. D liked the cable pattern, I’ve cabled often before, I went for it.

I neglected to consider the relative volume of cabling involved in this pattern. And it wasn’t so simple that I ever managed to have it memorized. So I’ll blame that for my slowness. Although the associated revelation of spinning my own yarn plus everything else I’m doing lately ought to be included.

Now I have my eye on dozens of other knitting projects, so quick and easy to pick out awesome things, yet so slow to actually realize. Ah well. I’ve already started a glove (my first glove ever!), the intent being to at some point make a pair of gloves to match the scarf.

I think I must be a glutton for punishment.

“Properly practiced, knitting soothes the troubled spirit, and it doesn't hurt the untroubled spirit, either.”