First Project of 2006!

Gift certificate in hand, and rationalizing at full speed (hey, my brother paid for half, so it's not really a $100+ wrap, it's only a $50 wrap), in the time it takes to say, "Happy New Year, hand over the Silver Thaw," I had purchased my luxurious (i.e., outrageously expensive) yarn, Noro's new Silver Thaw, a Wool/Angora blend, (ok, we did hit a minor speed bump when I thought Rosie's was out of the colorway I had my heart set set set on, but, sigh of relief, it was tucked away in the tomb next door), and had wound up the four skeins I needed to make my next project:
Obviously, I needed to cast on within the hour, or I was going to have a knitter's stroke, so I began furiously swatching under Lisa's careful eye (because at this point, we all know I'm not the best swatcher/gauger). Honey, she said, I hate to tell you this, but I think you're going to have to wash your swatch. In one ear and out the other - crazy lady, I MUST CAST ON TONIGHT! She went on about the fiber's settling, angora blooming (there she goes with that Edelweis song again!), blah blah blah and some other angora nonsense. I wasn't listening, only to the click click click of my needles. So, we compromised, and wet the swatch down in the sink in the back room. See, look, it has no problem taking in water, look at that . . . she marveled. Yeah, whatever whatever, hurry - just tell me what damn needle to use. Then, huh, she's right. It looked completely different:. So, while I was at gauge on a 9, we went down to an 8 to compensate for the post blocking effects.
And, then, of course, after the initial frenzy of casting on was over, I got distracted the next day. When I was at home, my mother had a, what else, synthetic scarf, that wasn't too pretty, but it had a neat pocket to pull an end through and wrap snuggly around her neck. I remembered that Rosie's had a similar pattern for a Koigu neck cozy, so I picked up the pattern on Wednesday, and started playing with it. Wouldn't it be nice, I thought, if I could use up my angora along with my Koigu scraps? So, I swatched a honeycomb pattern with the Koigu doubled, but while the jeweled tones looked so pretty with the ochre, it just wasn't working out. Entranced with the honeycomb, I swatched using a pink kid classic - here's the result.
I'm pretty sure I hate it, and I'm going to rip it out - so what a waste of a knitting day - should have stuck to yummy Silver Thaw!