This is a story about a beloved scarf. Several years ago (pre-blog) my sister put in a request. She wanted a bright pink scarf. That was all she requested. The design was up to me. I purchased two skeins of KnitPicks Bare in worsted weight, along with some pink dye. I hand dyed the yarn and got a gorgeous bright pink with just slight color variations throughout the yarn. Then I held the yarn doubled and knit a scarf with a drop stitch pattern, adding tassels to each end. I ended up with a nice, thick scarf that was still open and let some air circulate. It was nice and long, too. In fact, this is a close up picture of the final product:

My sister has continued to wear this scarf each winter (I gave it to her Christmas of 2007) and she reports often that someone stops her and asks where she got her scarf or comments on it.

In early spring, my sister and mom moved back in together. Last week, they decided to go on vacation today to Florida. I fed their cats while they were gone. A few days after they got back from their trip, I got a call from my sister telling me about her beloved scarf. Seems Spike found an end of it. It was hanging in a spare closet with her winter coat and they weren’t aware that it was hanging down enough to be in danger.

Now, for those of you unaware of what danger I am talking about, let me point you to this post. Take a moment to read that post and you will start to understand that a hand knit, wool scarf could be in danger.

This weekend I visited my mom and sister. And my sister brought me the scarf, wondering what the heck we could do with it. The first several feet were fine, but the last foot and a half or so? It almost brought me to tears. See? (Sorry about the crappy cell phone pictures.)

You can click to make the picture bigger to get the scope of the damage.

So, we put the scarf in a bag and I brought it home to see what I could salvage. I was able to unravel the scarf, although I had a lot to throw away at the end. I did felt the ends together on several longer pieces to minimize waste, but some of the pieces were just tiny and not worth even trying. I am now hunting for a cowl pattern to see if I can give my sister something else she will love just as much but with a bit less yarn. And my sister is on the hunt for a safer storage space for her scarf!