I finished one!

So after months of not working on it, and it sitting in a box, bag, or other long forgotten location, it's done.

Draped on the tree; it is a Christmas present after all!

To be fair, I did complete many other projects since I cast this on, and as you can see below, it's not like a had help or encouragement from my family (two or four legged, most issues were brought about by the four legged members) to finish this. 

Yes, we put things on this cat, mostly to see if he will move or not.

 It really is a nice scarf. It's for my husband, made from a Caron yarn, that they apparently don't make anymore. It's called Natural Caron or something like that and contains 75% acrylic yarn and 25% merino yarn. It was my first venture into natural fibers and I started it...I don't even remember. I guess it had to be two years ago. My husband was working in VA, my daughter and I had come down from NY to visit for Christmas, I finished a Tumbling Blocks scarf made from Lion Brand Wool Ease Thick and Quick (back when it was 100% wool) and decided to make another. He said he wanted one that was thinner since the first scarf covered his neck and half his face when left unfolded, so I went to the store (I was still going to Michael's for my yarn then) and got this Caron.

I got home and pulled out all my knitting books and showed him all the different patterns available, including some online, and he picked a 4x4 basket weave. That's when the problems began. Man, basket weaves do look nice, and I really want to do something with a double basket weave pattern someday, but they are boring and tedious. At least that was my take. You switch between knitting and purling every four stitches, which is just long enough to want to start mindlessly doing one or the other, but then you have to stop. The repeats are 5 rows long, which again, is just long enough to start to loose track and mindlessly knit, but again you can't. So to sum up, it's not something you can do in your sleep, but it's not something where you have to pay attention to every stitch, and I guess that's where I am in my knitting now, I either want something insanely easy, like a bunch of stockinette stitch (preferably taken a step further to be knit in the round), or something fairly difficult, like lace, color work, or cables.

Closer shot of the dreaded basket weave

 I guess that means I have graduated to a new level of knitting. I used to be fine with minimally complex patterns like this, an entire ribbed scarf, or something like that, and the large amount of inches of stockinette needed for a larger project like a sweater scared me, but I have found the zen of stockinette and at this point in my knitting life, I would either like to be in that zen mode, or be completely ripped out of it by something difficult and challenging, not wade in the lapping waves of something you sort of have to pay attention to.