Cascade yarns are really really nice. I’ve knit an irish hiking scarf (the candy cane scarf) in a Cascade yarn, and I’ve been trying to knit something in the lovely brown Cascade that I got in the Knitter’s Tea Swap. This yarn can be frogged, and knit and frogged and knit and frogged and knit about a dozen times before it starts getting too surly and needs to have a new end cut.
I know this because I have tried, and failed, to cast on and knit the Column of Leaves scarf. This is a beautiful scarf, which I simply cannot knit. I don’t know if it’s the pattern defeating me, or the lack of sleep, or if this yarn simply refuses to be this scarf.
So far I have:
Cast on the wrong number of stitches (twice).
Cast on the right number of stitches and started knitting with the tail instead of the working yarn.
Cast on the wrong number of stitches and started knitting with the tail instead of the working yarn.
Cast on the right number of stitches, knit the inch of garter stitch edging, and then knit row one of the pattern, and promptly knit row one of the pattern again on row two.
Cast on the wrong number of stitches and knit the inch of garter stitch edging, and then knit row one, discovered I had extra stitches, failed to count my stitches, painstakingly tinked back to the beginning of the row, knit it again and still had extra stitches, then counted the stitches to realize I had too many.
Cast on the right number of stitches, knit the inch of garter stitch edging, successfully knit rows one, two, three and gotten to the end of row four with three more instructions to follow and no more stitches to knit. Tinked back to the beginning of the row, knit it again and gotten to the end of the row with no more instructions to follow and four more stitches to knit.
Given up, and cast on 40 stitches for a simple k2, p2 ribbed scarf.
Knit-Write 
I would have given up a long time before you did!
The sorta sad thing is, I’m going to try it again in a different yarn, on the theory that maybe this yarn just didn’t want to be this scarf.
Maybe a nice green or autumnal colourway instead….
If I still have problems on a second go round, I’ll probably go through the pattern line by line and see if maybe the problem isn’t just me.
It’s just such a pretty scarf, I can’t resist it.