Scarf Madness

I finished the first crochet scarf, and I've moved onto the 2nd scarf in the Macalester College colors. It's slow going for two reasons: not enough time to work on it and the rows are super long! But it looks like I'll have lots of time to work on it in the next few days, because another winter storm is on its way into the Twin Cities. Apparently, we're supposed to get between 15" and 20" of the fluffy white stuff starting now (yes, it's snowing outside) - and all of this after the foot we got over the weekend. Glad I shoveled the walk this morning! If you recall, I was crocheting the scarf in preparation for the Alumni Board meeting at Macalester this weekend, but guess what ... it's been cancelled because of the weather... But I think I'll still try to finish it soon so I can move on to something else (maybe the Sunrise Circle Jacket again).

By the way, I have an update on my struggles with the Lion Brand Olivia's Shrug that I tried to make out of Berocco Pronto back in January. Lion Brand apparently surfs the blogs like the rest of us, because Jackie Smyth from Lion Brand called me at the store on Tuesday (Monday?) all worried about the fact that I had such problems with the pattern. Although, I still don't get how the pattern as written can work, she seemed to think that it was more of a beginning crocheter's problem rather than the pattern's problem because they've had two crocheters make the pattern as a test since my blog entry! In addition, she's ordered the original shrug from their archives so she can check it against the pattern. She thought that possibly the difficulty with the pattern could have been the heavier nature of Pronto (although I was getting gauge), and offered to send me free the yarn called for in the pattern so I could try it with that. I'd say Lion Brand doesn't want any bad publicity out on the net... But I also feel like this is a company who cares what people think about them and how their customers feel about their products, be it yarn or patterns. That's good customer service in my book... I told Jackie that I would be willing to try completing the shrug again, although I'm not taking them up on their offer of some of their yarn, simply because I wanted to find a pattern to make out of yarn I own. I'll keep everyone posted.