Almost all is well w/my pinwheel blankie

My swatch is finally dry and since I have a different digi cam and am not at the same desk, I figure I'll take a pic of the swatch w/the pinwheel blankie in progess to show how nicely the swatch survived my washing machine. As much as I hate my washing machine, it is wonderfully gentle to all my knitting projects. The colors didn't fade at all and I see no signs of pilling or felting, so I'm relieved I can throw the blankie in the wash when I need to w/o too many qualms.

I finally got a hold of my knitting mentor/friend yesterday so she helped me rip back half of what I had knitted due to my inadvertently shifting the holes over by 1 stitch. I still have 3(!) twisted yo's, but they're way at the beginning and I'm not about to re-cast the 5 beginning sts on dpn's again. Even my friend made a face at how much of a PITA it is to start w/those 5 measly stitches. Since dd1 will abscond w/this blankie when I'm done anyway and only I know where I messed them up, I can live w/those mistakes.

Progress shot of the Colinette Giotto scarf. I'm using the drop stitch scarf pattern from SnB Nation. I love the colorway (Rose Garden) and how it looks knitted up in this pattern, but I'm not enjoying the process of knitting this one. Is it the ribbon yarn itself? Or maybe it's 'cause my needles are too long & cumbersome? Or maybe the drop stitch pattern is simply not fun w/this yarn as I thought it would be? In any case, I've got 'til at least 'til July to finish this.

Not quite on the backburner, but simply driving me crazy is getting the frickin' gauge for my Kyoto. Knitted another swatch on needles 2 sizes up and I'm still 1/2 stitch too tight, after washing & drying! I must be the only one whose cotton swatches shrink instead of bloom after a wash. And since I air-dried them instead of putting them in the dryer, I am at a loss. So it looks like I will be adjusting the pattern to my gauge instead of the other way around. Bugger.