Many of my knitting friends will tell you: sometimes a skein of yarn takes a while to figure out what it’s going to be.
Some years ago now, Sonia came to Boston for a conference, and we met up in the South End and walked around, eating pastries from Flour and talking about our lives. She lives in the Pacific Northwest and we became friends via Ravelry, but had never met in person before. She brought me a gorgeous crimson skein of Cassiopeia yarn from Pigeonroof Studios, and I immediately started browsing potential patterns.
The yarn has a bit of cashmere and silk in it – so it stretched waaaay out with the first pattern I used, Regina. I frogged that attempt and made a gorgeous Cocoon Cowl next, but I rarely wore it. (I like my cowls big and cozy in the wintertime, and this one was more on the small and dainty side.)
A few years later, I used some of the skein to make a Gin & Tonic hat for my friend Laura, but I’d had the rest of it kicking around all this time. But it has now found its final form: a cozy, cabled Queensland Beach headband.
I tried it out on our first proper snow day, yesterday, and I’m so thrilled with it. And it reminded me: sometimes you have to try a few paths/possibilities before you find the right one.
cakes, tea and dreams 
Lovely post and great knitting!