Knitting Can be Frustrating: The Xmas Scarf

Welcome to a multi-part series unfortunately titled "Knitting Can be Frustrating." At the moment, I am working on a scarf for Juan's mom. I got the yarn at Loopy Yarns in Chicago a few weeks ago: it's Plymouth Yarn's Baby Alpaca Brush in a soft ecru color. I didn't realize this at the time, because I was juggling an over-excited dog, but it's 80% baby alpaca and 20% acrylic. I'm not too pleased about giving acrylic as a gift, but it is very soft. I just hope it doesn't pill with wear. I had intended to make the Daisy scarf from Rowan magazine #36, and was very optimistic about my ability to do it.
I had the whole car ride to Michigan and back last week, which would afford me ample time to concentrate on the pattern. You can see for yourself what the result was:

I have tried lace patterns before and just can't seem to get it right. I'm not sure what I am doing wrong and not sure how to overcome this problem. I must be reading a direction wrong somewhere, or I don't understand wrapping correctly- I don't know, and that's what kills me. I taught myself to knit from a book, and have mastered many a technique through written instructions, but there is something about lace knitting that eludes me. Not to be easily daunted, however, I ripped out try #1 and started again, suspecting where at least part of my erroneous ways had led me astray. Here is attempt #2:


A bit better, but I am supposed to drop a bunch of loops, and while some of them settled in just fine, many didn't. And this is the part that frustrates me- am I doing it right and they just need to settle and be blocked? Or is it wrong? It looked wrong to me and Juan and my sister Meridith, and since I had no lace knitters to consult and I already have too much stress in my life, I decided that I would only impart negative vibes into the thing if I kept working on it, which wouldn't do for a gift. So, I ripped it out again, determined to find a better pattern that wouldn't send me to the funny farm in the process. That in itself was not as easy as hoped. Most patterns just didn't work with the yarn I had, and the ones that did were.... lace. No way. I finally decided to use "Warm Fuzzies" from Stitch N' Bitch Nation, with pseudo-cables on one side and ribbing on the other.

The thing is, the pseudo-ribbing was hard to manipulate with the fat 10.5 needles required and my hands were really starting to hurt after this much had been knit. I wasn’t thrilled with the idea of the many painful nights before me and I don’t really like scarves with different patterns on each side, sooooo… I once again frogged the whole project. Starting afresh, I decided to just go with what I already know, and started working a seed stitch pattern.

Two worries with this choice: 1) the seed pattern is a bit stiff, so I’m dubious about how it’s going to look when it drapes. 2) Since the cable pattern, I started knitting two strands together, but had only bought three skeins since that’s what the original pattern called for. I will probably need to hunt down more skeins to make this a proper-length scarf. Meanwhile, since having Internet access, I found out many people have had problems with the Daisy pattern and have found some helpful tips online.

So, dear readers, if there are any left after this long tirade, what should I do? Keep knitting the double-stranded seed stitch? Frog the already tired yarn once again and do a different pattern? (I was thinking maybe basketweave would drape nicely) Go back to the original pattern and try again? Any other good scarf patterns that wouldn’t require double stranding and hair-pulling? I await any suggestions, because lord knows, I really can’t look at yarn and needles right now.