I’m having great fun constructing a scarf/shawl using circular needles and knitting sideways rather than lengthwise. I cast on a zillion stitches (stopped when I got bored) in the picot cast on (thank you, Carol!) on white plastic needles about the size of my little finger, using doubled heather-toned (brown/orange) wool. The cable is not that long but it sits complacently in my lap while I knit: one longer cable needle I tried had a mind of its own and I felt I was doing battle so I frogged like mad and went for this more pliable one. The actual length of the scarf is going to be a surprise as I can’t stretch it out fully but this is part of the charm of Intuitive or Freedom Knitting. Did a dropped stitch for the first row for a lacey effect and then switched to a very soft acrylic in a sunrise orange. Testing out the gauge to see how this new yarn looked (using this yarn singly and not doubled) I knit five forward and then ‘knit’ those five backward (which is actually a purl as I ‘knit’ into the back of the stitch going from left to right) and then knit those five frontward again, going into the back of the stitch. Well, an "I wonder what would happen if….." then occurred and I continued in blocks of five across the row (am still working on that row – maybe not a zillion stitches but LOTS!). I like the look. The ply of the yarn and the size of the needles have allowed for the ‘quints’ to join together loosely with a sweep of a stitch. The plan is to do the next row in a plain knit or purl to sort of ‘mortar’ the ‘quints’ to the rest of the scarf. I know this will work because I shot awake at one a.m. with another idea in mind on how to enhance the ‘quints’ – not on this scarf (lord, no way am I frogging it! – if it suddenly fails to please it will be one of the projects that gets tossed as is out into garden for use by nature of Cat next door (I think he was a sheep in a former life and feels some affinity to wool) or wind and rain) – but got out some deep purple wool that has been waiting on a narrow scarf idea and I experimented with the ‘quints’ enhancement (it worked!) and found that the ‘mortar’ idea works as well. Knitting under a full Moon is magical and the item Knit will carry that.