Scarf

It’s absolute heaven with J back at school and M and E at work. That’s not to say the four legged family members aren’t demanding. I only trimmed Harvey a matter of weeks ago and he looks like a shaggy sheepdog again. He needs a regular trim unlike Riley whose coat seems to be made of slow growing silk. Their tails in particular are a constant source of work. They both bring home enough twig foliage to run a small woodburner. I sometimes have to snip it out if it’s mainly thistle. I didn’t have this problem with my previous Springers because it was the norm for them to have docked tails.

It turns out that having a low coffee table and two dogs with long swishy tails is not a great combination. Riley has snuffed out a number of candles simply by wagging his tail nearby. (The candles are now on a higher surface.) Last night Harvey swished a ball of yarn onto the floor and figured it had therefore become a dog toy. It was unravelled in seconds. It took considerably longer to untangle and rewind it. The photo above is Harvey’s, ‘it wasn’t me!’ pose.

I decided to try both crochet and knitted approaches to a double thickness (worked as a tube) scarf for M using the Bluefaced Leicester in the pheasant colour way that he liked. It’s a dk yarn with a suggested hook/needle size of 4mm but I used a 6mm hook and linen stitch to create a fabric with some drape but without losing the warmth. Next I tried used the 4mm cubic circulars and after goodness knows how long I eventually got a tiny little bit of stocking stitch. I couldn’t see me having the wrist power or patience to stick with it. So crochet linen stitch it is, the majority of which has been worked up whilst watching a cheesy channel five movie. If you take notice of channel five movies you’d be forgiven for thinking that one in two women will, at some stage in their lives, awake from a coma to some traumatic situation.

M initially eyed the crochet scarf with suspicion. The stocking stitch example in the yarn shop produced much more definite stripes. Once the project got a bit longer and he could see that it still has stripes he was much happier. Who knew men could be so fussy over a handmade scarf? He’s also stipulated tassels, but not multi coloured ones, just grey ones. He doesn’t want much does he?

I’m pleasantly surprised by the feel of this yarn. You can never really tell how a yarn will behave until it’s worked up. It’s not splitty at all and not so smooth it’s tricky to handle but it is soft and warm. I don’t usually like to use overly excited expressions like ‘a joy to work with’ but in this case it really is. M added this yarn to the pile so I don’t actually know how much it cost per ball but whatever it was it was worth every penny.