Rainbow Socks, a SeaRag Scarf and Learning to Knit

I finally finished the Charade socks I was working on. I was so unenthused about them that I considered ripping them with only half a sock to go. Mah mama volunteered to take them though, which gave me enough impetus to churn on. I'm not sure why I was so over them... I think the colours are lovely, but a bit blah to actually knit. It seems most of what I knit is fairly bright, this colourway was a bit neutral. Also the herringbone rib is not so stretchy, which made getting them on and off a bit tricky...


And now I'm off on Rainbow Socks. I'm enjoying them very much. The colours are more entertaining, and the yarn is very soft (it's Patonyle). They're fifty kinds of fun. I went away this weekend with some people from work, and I got quite a lot done. One of the guys there asked me to teach him to knit. Luckily, I decided to travel with multiple projects (god I'm a loser). A while ago I swapped with someone in my stitch'n'bitch for some fabulous Colinette WigWam.

The colours reminded me a bit of the ocean, so I thought I'd like to do some kind of deconstructed scarf, something that looked like rags washed up on a beach. I started off with some loose garter stitch, which wasn't really working. I showed it to another friend, saying I was going for something that looked like rags washed up on a beach. After a thoughtful pause while he weighed up how I might take it, he said carefully "Um... it looks like knitting to me." So I ripped it.


While browsing Ravelry I found a nice wavy dropstitch pattern, and have been running with that instead. It's the beginning of the knitting there. I'm very pleased with it. The pattern stops because I started teaching the guy I work with to knit garter stitch. I think he did very well, don't you? It's very even - he was worried it wasn't even enough, and stumbled on the idea of blocking by himself! Suggested that maybe when you finished a project there'd be a way of stretching it out to make it all even. I was very impressed.

I plan to give him some old needles and a spare ball of yarn tomorrow. I've cast on already so he can just go (I think we'd struggle to find the time for me to teach him to cast on, and he seemed quite eager to just keep going). I'm a bit worried that 4mm and dk yarn will grow so slowly compared to the wigwam on 8mm needles above that he'll lose a little interest. But I don't have any chunkier yarn and needles to give.

Now the real question is, since I was going with a bit of a casual, deconstructed thing, should I rip out the beginner garter stitch and keep going with my pattern, or should I keep it there in my scarf as a nice reminder of someone's first go at knitting, and my first go at teaching someone?