Les Miserables

This scarf is weird. I mean, I knew that when I started. You hand felt lace-weight yarn--of course it's going to look a little higgity in process. The stitches adjacent to the drops are always encroaching on the empty space and trying to grow by consuming that extra yarn no one seems to be using. The fabric is all crinkly because the yarn doesn't know how to behave at this gauge. It's all very odd.

I popped into a yarn shop on my way out of Puyallup this past weekend and the nice lady 1) complemented my bag (which Mrs. Penny Dreadfuls made for me, all those years ago. It still makes me very happy) and 2) wanted to know what I was knitting. So I pulled 2 feet of crinkled mess out of my purse and tried to show her. She made a face as if she was fruitlessly trying to comprehend the mess in front of her, and said something to the effect of, "I think I understand," in a tone of voice that said, "I have no idea what you're saying, but talking doesn't seem to be getting us anywhere, so let's just abandon ship and move on to the yarn which surrounds us."


And so we did just that and talked about how pretty Madeline Tosh is. (which it definitely is.)

Since then, I've put about a foot and a half onto the thing. It feels like it's slow going, but it's really not. I don't have enough yarn for the full 8 feet (nor the desire. Let's be absolutely clear about that. No one will ever receive a scarf that is 8 feet long unless >1.5 feet is made up of fringe.) I think I'll probably make it to 6, maybe even flirt with 7. This is because I'm using stash yarn left over from a Swallowtail. I've got about 1.5 hanks and the pattern definitely wants at least 2.

But I doubt I'll lose so much length during the felting process that it will somehow be unusable. I just need to stop measuring and knit the yarn that I have and call it a day. Right now I'm contemplating where I'm going to felt this...