Thoughts on the Vintage Velvet Scarf

I suspect that wearing this scarf a few times will probably offset most of the annoyances I've had with it.

It is of course Vintage Velvet from Scarf Style.  To begin with, the famous Muench Touch Me chenille is strangely not that pleasant to knit with.  It is extraordinarily soft, but after a while the hard core of the yarn feels stiff and unyielding.  I got so weary of it that I let it sit for -- well, I hate to say it, but at least a year at a stretch, I think.

I also found it very difficult to actually see what I was doing, although that may also have been due to the dark color and the fact that towards the end I was watching men's short-track speed skating much of the time.

Here is Lee Jung-Su, Sung Si-Bak, and Lee Ho-Suk of South Korea ahead of Americans Apolo Ohno and J.R. Celski and Canadian Olivier Jean (photo from the Daily Mail) in the 1500m finals, in Vancouver on February 13.  That was an exciting race!

But the scarf was beautifully soft once worked up, and Laura and Julia were both enchanted with it.

So then the other day I tossed the scarf into the washing machine -- had heard from a number of sources how nerve-wracking the process was, and so I was actually rather blasé about it.

The scarf was quite stiff coming out of the washing machine -- like a piece of felted wool.  I hurriedly chucked it into the dryer and left it there perhaps 15 minutes or so, which relaxed it a bit, but it still felt oddly hard when I laid it out to dry. 

Laura came across it and wailed "It's not soft any more!"

  

It did soften up considerably in the day or two it took to dry, although the cable up the center took a surprisingly long time to stop feeling like a length of nylon rope.

A number of ends worked their way out, and a couple of middles in places, worming here and there despite not doing so at all as I was knitting.

With five skeins it was just 60 in. before felting -- much too short, I thought -- and even shorter than that afterwards.  By dint of hard stretching, I did get it to 64 in. along the edge.  I was relieved to see, though, that the wonderful architectural point at the ends was still there. 

It is very nicely soft now, though, and I had to take it forcibly away from Laura this evening, or she would have worn it to bed.  It still feels a bit short to me, although I suppose it's really more a decorative accessory than functional, and its decorativeness is undeniable!

Comments

[Elizabeth]

It does look luxurious! The photos caught the texture of the chenille.
I'm with Laura; I would have worn it to bed!

[mary lou]

I agree - not pleasant to knit with. I'm glad to hear the final product wasn't a big disappointment. Great pictures of the texture, though.

[berva (Mom)]

I tried knitting with some chenille yard which was a similar beautiful teal and felt so nice and soft but was a thorough pain to knit with because the yarn kept twisting as I was working it until it was all tightly knotted up. I tried putting the ball of yarn in a baggie so it could spin and unwind itself but was only partially successful. A big disapointment as I had bought all they had of that yarn and was trying to make a cardigan.