How many linguists does it take to start a scarf?

Talk about frustration, frustration, frustration. In my works in progress sidebar, you can see that I've started a scarf for my friend Nynke. It is a belated birthday gift. We both agreed on a cabled scarf pattern that I got out of one of the knitting books I brought back from Asia (this one is a Chinese one). Luckily for me, most of the patterns are just charts, and the few characters on them are ones I know or can figure out, for the most part. But, unlike most Western patterns, the Chinese one is just a chart. No information on the type of yarn, the needle size or, most importantly, gauge. So, it was mostly guess work on my part.... This resulted in my having to rip out and restart this scarf ten times! I'm using 100% wool, 1-ply yarn that I bought online from Het Stookhok. I initially bought it for more dyeing experimentation, but Nynke wanted a white-ish scarf, so I thought this would be perfect (luckily, she agreed). According to the website, the recommended needle size is 3-5mm, corresponding roughly to US3-8. I decided on a larger size needle and went for US7. I happily started knitting and took the scarf to my local Stitch 'n Bitch meet-up and was making some progress when I (and a few of the other SnB'ers) realized that the scarf was just a little too narrow.... A number of suggestions were thrown out: keep it narrow and make it extra long, start over and knit "two" scarves side-by-side. Well, I decided to start over and try knitting two scarves side-by-side... I knit a bit and didn't like what was happening.... I didn't want the two cables to be so far apart. I tried developing my own modifcation, bringing the cables closer together... Still not close enough.... I tried various modifications, bringing the cables closer and closer together, adjusting it so the pattern looked more flowy, so the cables blended into one another all the way up.... But alas, I was not happy with any of the results. Eventually, on a whim, I decided to measure the weight of the yarn with my WPI Tool (wraps-per-inch). You wrap the yarn around this little wooden cylindrical instrument, and based on the number of wraps per inch, it tells you the weight and recommended needle size. To my shock, I only got 8 wraps per inch, meaning that the recommended needle size is 5.5-8 mm or US9-11! Quite a big jump from what was recommended on the website... So I switched to a US size 10.5 needle and went back to the original pattern. Of course, the scarf was a little wider, but I still wanted it to be a little wider, so I made one final adjustment (instead of 4x4 cables, I'm doing 5x5 cables). Finally, the scarf seems to be working! Admittedly, it could be a little wider, but I decided that this is the final restart... I don't think I can handle one more instance of ripping... (and I decided to give the yarn a break. ^^) The lessons I learned?

(1) Don't always trust the recommended needle size given... If you have a WPI Tool, it's not that difficult to check.

(2) If you have a pattern that doesn't give any sort of recommendations as to yarn type, needle size or gauge, be ready for a loooot of trial-and-error knitting!