I'm Speechless!

Well this week (Nov. 18) I started the "Marian cowl scarf.  I knew it wouldn't take long as it only uses 1 ball of super bulky wool.  I have never knitted in the round so that was a new experience for me.  Was rather funny in the I was on my 3rd row of knitting and noticed that the ends were not yet connected.  I thought it just happened naturally.  So I had to undo my stitches until I reached the cast on row.  It is a simple pattern - k1, p1 around and around.  It also had an optional twist where after you cast on, you twist the first stitch 1 complete turn on the needle.  I followed the video (from the pattern's website) and proceeded.  Not used to stitching with a twist so as I stitched away, I kept un-twisting the wool.  What I ended up with was a straight scarf.  So, it ripped out my work once again.

I twisted the wool once again and seemed to be doing ok.  I really got going and was stitching really fast.  The needles were so big I felt I was stitching with jumbo crayons.

I finished the scarf last night (Nov, 21) and discovered I had a holy mess on my hands.  I've never seen anything so awful in my life.

So I now had SEVERAL twists.  Doesn't look so bad but when I put it on, it looked positively ridiculous.  I wrapped it around my neck twice but it didn't help.  Upon closer examination of my work I saw that there were DOZENS of my mistakes in the work.  Being that it was such a simple pattern, there should not have been any change of design.  A closer look shows the mistakes:

As you can see on the left half (in the middle), it looks as though I have made a column of 'knit' stitches.  That is an error as the pattern is really like a brick wall (row 1 - k1, p1, k1, p1; row 2 - p1, k1, p1, k1).  So that's a big no-no.  You can see that the right half of the stitching is correct.  Having a counted cross stitch background I couldn't leave this as is... so... you guessed it, this morning I took it all apart.  

And since I have the memory of a fruit fly, I am placing a stitch marker on every row so I will keep track of when I start with a purl vs. a knit.  I am also not going to twist the wool.  I will put it around my neck twice so no need for a twist.  Wish me luck!