I was/am the secret Santa to my brother, Mike. (Secret's out, so no worries.) I had this great scarf in the works. Then I hit an obstacle. So I came up with a solution...

...that didn't work out in time.

And still no giftie for my bro. What a snafu.

So now I have two, count 'em - 2 cable knit scarves on my needles. Neither have much done on them, so it's not like I'm committed to them. But my bro still needs his gift.

The first scarf is made from some pricey, yet yummy Italian yarn called Merinos Dodici by Zegna Baruffa. It's super soft and quite bulky in a great gray color (not too dark, not too light - you understand). I got this at an upscale, snobby store that I'd rather not return to, if possible. This was my first trip out trying to find a good LYS.

I purchased two balls of this and started working on the scarf. Well, sooner than expected, I was almost out of yarn! The bulkiness of the yarn was deceiving (pretty small skeins) and making cables and ribbing just gobbled it all up. When I went back to the store to pick up some more, they were just closing (already closed the register, sorry dearie) and weren't going to be open again until January.

Well, that doesn't bode well for a Christmas present. So along comes plan #2: start a new cable knit scarf in an easier to come by yarn. So I picked up some Lion Brand® Wool-Ease in Wheat (an oatmeal-like color with small brown threads coming out).

I changed the cable pattern and got started, but so did the holidays. I wasn't able to get much done on the scarf and Christmas came and went. Oh, well. So now I'm looking at these two WIPs, wondering where to start (and stop) and that gets me thinking. [collective gasp]

I think that I'm going to ignore these for now, perhaps even rip them out, and start fresh. I'm thinking about using the Wool-Ease for the "Matt" seaman's scarf for my brother. I'm not certain what I'll do with the Merinos Dodici, but preferably something that only requires 138 yds.

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