Spring Kerchief

I've used up my leftovers from the hedgehog sweater to make a new triangle-shaped scarf.  My old triangle-shaped scarf, lacy and fuschia, is a bit ratty from daily wear all winter.  I still remember the summer of 2002 when I spent a week swearing like a sailor on the beaches of Block Island as I knit it. Triangle-shaped scarves are great to wear, because they loop so well around the neck without bulking up, but those long rows are never ending.  Especially when you've made a mistake in a lace pattern and are ripping backwards into no mans land.

This time, I went for something simpler and got a great start on it during a family vacation to Florida.  Have you noticed that I love knitting wool on warm beaches, preferably with a little sand and sunscreen mixed in?  Then you need to know that I was raised by a mother who carded her own wool and picked her own fleeces on the beaches of Martha's Vineyard throughout the 70s and 80s.

Snow below suggests that the Spring part of this Kerchief is yet to come...

The pattern is Seattle Yarn's Spring Kerchief by Ruth Bowen, which I found on Ravelry.  Their advanced search tool, where you plug in how much yarn you have and what you want to make, and it spits out free patterns, is so so glorious and amazing.  I nearly finished three partially used-up balls of Rowen Felted Tweed DK.  This pattern is great but you need to be psychologically prepared for the cast-off ruffle row, which took me almost 4 hours (which is to say: a faculty meeting, a drive to my parents, part of The Help - so bad that I couldn't finish it - and one of the kids' weekend naps).  I wasn't tracking my time on this project until then, but I think that row represents a good chunk of it.