About an ugly scarf

This is a story about a hideous scarf. Several years ago I acquired some Koigu wool yarn in three color ways--lavender, variegated, and shocking neon pink. Because of the shocking neon pink, the package of yarn languished in my stash. I didn't know what to do with it, but I hung on to it because it was Koigu...and so many people rave about Koigu.

This might be offensive to some, but I'm just not a Koigu fan. I don't have an explanation. It could be the hard twist. Most of the Koigu colors are beautiful, if not a bit riotous, but I can't get past the hard twist and the cost...and there are just too many choices.

In this case, the choice had been made for me. Purple, variegated, shocking neon pink. I didn't want to knit with the yarn because I was worried that my optic nerves would be permanently damaged by looking at shocking neon pink for hours on end. You know how when you look at one color for a long period of time and then look up how you see everything in the opposite color for a while? I couldn't imagine everything being green. Forever. I know if I knit with that yarn my red receptors would get totally used up. Green would be my life from that point forward. Not that I don't like green.....

I decided to weave with it and make a sort of plaid pattern. I warped my rigid heddle loom with mostly lavender and variegated, but I used the pink for about 8 warp threads. (Apologies for any incorrect terminology.) I used a 7.5 reed with the intention of keeping the warp and weft balanced. What a bitch. Koigu is slippery. I had to be very careful as to not beat the weft too much, but beat it enough to make a nice straight line. My selvages were for crap and it just wasn't turning out well. But I wove on.

When I took it off the loom I hated it. I hated the colors. I hated the selvages. I hated how it felt. I hated the stiffness. So I soaked it in cold water and hung it on shower curtain to dry. I checked on it about an hour later and hated it even more. I ironed it. Gak. Still bad. I washed it in hot water with a bit of Dawn. That's when the red dye started to run. I beat the crap out of it as I washed it in hot water. I plunged it into cold water. More hot water. Still bad. If anything, it was worse, but I was not about to give up.

I filled a big stock pot with water, got the water boiling and tossed in the scarf. Heck, I had nothing to lose. I was either going to end up with a scarf that I hated or a very thick book mark. I watched it boil and got a little too much satisfaction out of it. After about 10 minutes I dumped the water and scarf into the sink (the water was very red with dye that hadn't been properly rinsed by the dyers at Koigu) and then I ran ice cold water over it until the water ran clear. I beat it up some more and then hung it over the shower curtain to dry. Then I watched the final episode of season three of Downton Abbey. (That's another blog post...but I'm waiting for Liana and Calvin to watch season three so I don't spoil it for them.)

I got up Monday morning, went to start the shower, and WHAT THE HELL?? The scarf was gorgeous! It was soft. It was squishy. It was drapey. The colors weren't hideous. The salvages were still not perfect but totally acceptable. I lightly steamed out some of the wrinkles from the hissy fit I had thrown upon it the night before and wore it to work.

I'm going to try to recreate the scarf this weekend so I can take before and after photographs. I was too busy being pissed to document properly.