Mom's Birthday Scarf (and my first bind off)

I decided that the tartelette scarf was made in the color that I myself really like right now, not necessarily my mom. So, I went to the yarn store and bought many balls of yarn (red tartelete for Laura, pink/white tartelette for ?, a couple I can’t remember right now), including 3 balls of pink and white rowan cotton braid for my mom’s birthday scarf. After I bought the yarn, I sat down at the knitting table to have someone there help me with the cubetto dropped stitches that people couldn’t figure out at work. It took her a while, it seemed complicated, I lost a few rows, but she fixed it. While I was sitting there waiting for her to finish, my eye caught the lavender cotton braid sitting on the table. I realized that I like that one better, and I was able to just simply exchange the pink for the lavender. I was in a rush to finish it tonight, so I cast on right at the Times Square subway platform (after having picked up the tickets for tomorrow’s Julius Caesar show), and began knitting the scarf on the #17 needles I bought. It progressed very quickly, and I caught the eye of someone on the train who said to her husband “I wish I could do that.” I told her how it really wasn’t hard, and showed her for a few minutes. I don’t think I taught her how or anything, but it was nice to demystify the process a little. I always thought knitting was some kind of tremendous feat, when really it is not very hard, especially to knit a scarf on big needles. When I got home, I realized the scarf was too wide, so I ripped it and started over with I forget now if it was 9 or 12 stitches, and I was done after about 2 ½ hours. I tried to bind off myself as Barbara told me, but it started to unravel and I started to get very nervous so I started weaving in the end piece into the end of the scarf, and it prevented the unraveling but now it looks a little kooky. I hadn’t intended the scarf to look so “homemade.” I realized of course it had to be a present for my mom because the end was the kind of thing “only a mother could love.” Maybe. The pictures came out terribly, unfortunately. I would have taken more if I had realized, but it's already with my mom (pictures posted after this was posted).

errr. I wish this picture came out better.


This was supposed to show the neat detail of the rowan cotton braid.


I have a strange look on my face, but this is me modeling the scarf. It might be the best representation of the scarf I have at this point, though I will take this picture down if my mom sends a picture of HER wearing the scarf. That would be nicer.