...and math hates Rowan right back.
I'm going to give you the good news first: I have another FO! I didn't blog about this at all, although the Spiders have seen me work on this. It's a scarf for my very patient sister. She chose the yarn way back in August, a 200 yd hank of super hairy mohair at a rug store in Taos, New Mexico called Weaving Southwest. Yes, it's a rug store. They sell beautiful handwoven Navajo rugs and weaving yarn. But, they have a small collection of knitting yarn, called Rio Grande Yarn!
Now, I doubted that 200 yds was enough to make anything... I thought of knitting it on very large needles to get an airy effect, but would I have enough yarn? Would my 14 year old sister think a holey handknitted scarf is cool? Would she "accidentally" lose it? I had doubts. Then, I found some Rowan Cashsoft in *exactly* the same color at the Point! The next step was to find a good 2 color stitch pattern. I remembered a swatch at Knit NY, made in black and white Cascade 220. It looked like little stars, and the stitch pattern was called 2 color star stitch. I googled it, found it, and there you go. 
Now, on to the bad news. Rapunzel is driving me up the wall. I'm hesitant at every step. Sarah informed me that Rowan designs are huge and that I had to knit one size smaller. So I frogged my size S front (aka the largest swatch you've ever seen) and started making the size XS. Eeck! And whereas before, my knitting was larger than theirs (ie I was following instructions for size S, and was getting size M measurements), now I've considerably tightened up. Maybe too much? I think this front is *too small*. But I'm not sure. You see, the travelling ribs add a nice 3D effect, with the K2 columns forming ridges, and I'm afraid that blocking to the correct size will flatten it... See how nice it looks with no blocking? 
Also, this crazy Fair Isle every 4th row means you get tons of ends to weave in. Since you use your contrasting color only on RS rows, that means you have to cut the yarn after each Fair Isle row. Which means weaving in 2 ends per Fair Isle row. Ouch.
I had one little trick up my sleeve: I cut a length of yarn long enough for 2 rows. Then I fold it in a U shape, and start knitting from the middle to one end. On the next Fair Isle row, I pick up the yarn at the middle again and knit to the other end. Therefore, I only have 2 ends to weave in instead of 4! The WS still looks uh, shaggy. Check it out: 
I'm sure the french and french-speaking girls who are starting the Rapunzel knit along could help me, but they're not starting until April 2nd!
