Vintage Velvet #3 - The Untold Story

• Five skeins Muench Touch Me #3642
• Jimmy Beans Wool
• US8
• Vintage Velvet designed by Lisa Daniels
• From the book SCARF STYLES

1. A close-up of the finished knitted scarf, before felting and drying:



2. Another shot of the unfelted, undried scarf:


3. Here's the scarf right out of the washing machine after two 12 minute wash cycles (hot wash; cold rinse) in a zippered pillow case with two pairs of faded jeans for balance and agitation:

4. The finished product after 40+ minutes in the dryer and some fan time along the back of our sofa:

5. Same as above:

But all is not perfect in Vintage Velvet Land. Some odd little black bits are working their way out of the felted stitches. I think it's the yarn core showing itself. I'm clipping madly and crossing my fingers

You Want Magic? I'll Give You Magic!

This is Vintage Velvet #2 (5 skeins Muench Touch Me in Cream) post-knitting, pre-felting. I love it more than creme brulee and that's saying something.

This is a close-up of the VV2, pre-felting, so you can see how loose and floppy the stitches are. Observe the infamous chenille worming phenomenon up close.


Now here is the finished, post-knitting post-felting product (and trust me when I say no photo taken by yours truly could possibly do justice to the wonder of a Vintage Velvet):

The pictures are so lifeless. This is a sensual scarf. You want to roll around on it. You can't stop touching it. You don't care who sees you gazing lovingly in its velvety eyes. It's a 3-D wonder that my photography can't capture.

I gave it two shots through the washer and dryer and am contemplating a third just to tighten it up and enhance the vintage velvet attributes. But I'm going to wait a week or two before I decide.

You need to make this scarf. You need to experience felted Touch Me. The first time I decided to make this scarf was 2003. I made it halfway through the first ball of TM and bailed. Way too expensive for a project I wasn't sure would live up to expectations. Oh, who am I kidding? I wasn't convinced it would be anything but total disaster. I sold off the extras on eBay and forgot about it for a couple years.

Maybe you feel the same way. You're not willing to make a big financial commitment to anything but a sure thing. Well, I have about 2/3 of a ball of hunter green Touch Me (from last year's project) waiting to be claimed. Why not knit it up in pattern, run it through the washer and dryer, and see what you think.

Leave a note in comments if you're interested and I'll pick somebody at random tomorrow and ship it out.

Yes, I'm a Touch Me enabler. I can't help myself. It's that wonderful.

Pure Bliss!

<--before

It's been a week. A bad week. A stinking bad week. I'll say one word about it and we won't speak of it again.

Dentist.

I needed something to put a smile on my (sore) (swollen) (miserable) face and I am here to tell you that the Vintage Velvet Scarf from Scarf Style did the trick.

Yes, I finished knitting it: 5 balls of luxurious, glorious Muench Touch Me in a rich deep green. Five and a half feet of lush fabric, broken ribbing on either side of a thick reversible 6/6 cable. Now came the fun part: it was time to felt it.

I had to build up my courage before tossing $80 worth of hand-knit scarf into my 20+ year old Whirlpool. I had me a moment there when my life passed before my (red-rimmed) (tired) eyes. But there was no turning back. My dear friend's Big Occasion was nigh and it was do or die. So in it went. I swear to you I held my breath for forty-five long minutes. I checked its progress and literally gasped in delight when I saw it. Sodden, shrunken, but more gorgeous than I ever could have imagined!

And then into the dryer. This really freaked me out. But I did it anyway and I am so glad I did. (Such courage!) (Such fortitude!) I took it out per instructions when it was still slightly damp, stretched it out on my space board and sat gazing at it lovingly for two days while it finished (slowly) drying.





It's a work of art! A triumph! A masterpiece! And no thanks at all to my knitting: it's all due to Touch Me, hot water, agitation, and magic. Yes, magic. Nothing else can explain the transformation. Sheer unadulterated magic!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!









I needed a lift this week and oh baby did knitting ever provide one! I'm flying high. I'm writing fast and furious. I swear my (poor battered) jaw doesn't hurt any more. Best of all, the scarf is now on its way to a woman I love very much, sent with 20+ years of friendship and admiration. Happy Birthday, Bertrice Small!

This was so much fun that I feel a contest coming on. Details tomorrow!