A bag, some socks and no scarf

I am pretty sure this was instigated by Lynae's great adventure bag. I think I wanted a felted bag but didn't feel like felting a bag so I just knit it at a very tight gauge and it almost feels felted. I knit this during my breaks from the Irish Hiking Scarf that I have been having some yarn shortage issues with. I guess I have been a bit distracted because I had to restart this thing 8 times! Talk about determination. Just silly little things - cast on wrong # of sts., forgot to knit edge sts., started over on wrong needles - every time I got about 1-2 inches before I realized it and had to start over only to make the same mistake again! Finally all went well until I got to the strap which I decided to change (knit roughly 20 different ways and settle on the first change anyway!) It's done and I am happy, and the scarf, for now I am done with that too!

I started the Irish Hiking Scarf with some Debbie Bliss Baby Cashmerino that I had 2 balls of (not enough to make the scarf) but that didn't slow me down, I figured I would see if I even liked it before I worried about the little things, like having enough yarn to finish. It knit up quickly and I liked it so when I got to the end of the 1st ball I had to make some kind of decision. I bought the yarn last summer at a little shop up in the Northwoods of Wisconsin, on clearance. There was very little chance that I could match the yarn and I didn't want to try so I figured I would just pickup a ball of the same yarn in a different color for the middle and finish with the 2nd ball of the 1st color. I went to my LSY and she didn't carry that yarn, but she did have this wonderful Zara yarn that matched nicely. I added the new yarn and the gauge was perfect, the colors matched nicely, the only problem was that I liked the Zara more and now I wanted the entire scarf in the Zara. I ripped it all out and restarted with the new yarn. I only bought 1 ball of the Zara so after knitting that up I ran over to my LYS to get 2 more balls of the Zara and guess what? She sold all 8 balls that she had in the 24 hrs since I was last there! During a Blizzard! ARG! So I picked up 3 more balls in matching colors and started again. Now the colors matched too well. I started over rearranging the colors. Over and over I tried different color combos. I took breaks from the scarf and worked on the bag until finally the bag was finished and I accepted the fact that I just wasn't going to be happy with the yarn compromise on the scarf. That was when I realized I didn't really need to own this scarf, I just needed to knit it. I rewound all the yarn and was done with the scarf. What I finally ended up with was; a new knitted bag, 2 balls of Debbie Bliss Baby Cashmerino returned to my stash, 4 balls of Zara added to my stash and a whole week worth of knitting fun!


After all that I was in need of some relaxing knitting so I finished up these socks, they were supposed to be for Valentine's Day but better late than never (and you guys think I get to Group late).

Pattern: Basic sock w/ Chevron stitch
Yarn: Regia 4 color
Needles: #1
Start / Finish: Feb. 2 - Feb. 22