And finally, my favourite fuzzy scarf of 2006.

Melanie's scarf

In Derek's family, the four siblings and their spouses draw names to keep the gift giving manageable, so you're only buying (or in this case, making) one gift instead of five or six. I got my SIL Melanie's name this year and ironically enough, she got mine. (She gave me the most gorgeous wooden salad bowl. She has lovely taste.) I had a tragic incident when weaving in the ends of this "mistake rib" scarf... I accidentally cut into the knitting when I was snipping off a yarn tail, and ended up unravelling about 4 inches from the end of my work. I had to cut it because I couldn't get it to rip out properly, since of course I was at the cast-on edge. I didn't end up having enough time to repair it before Christmas morning, so I presented her with the unfinished scarf in a bag along with a ball of the yarn (Schachenmayr Nomotta Paradiso, a very soft 100% microfibre chenille) and a promise to finish it as soon as I could. I'm actually glad in a way that I ended up with some extra time to work on it, because I wasn't quite happy with the original product anyway. For some reason both the cast-on and bound-off ends were flaring out in a way I didn't like. Combine this issue with the fuzziness of the yarn almost completely obscuring the stitch pattern, and I was just not satisfied with my handiwork. And then, one morning, I woke up with the solution. I remembered one of the mantras I learned from Sally Melville at the K-W Knitters' Guild (inspired by Henry Ford): if you see a flaw, don't think of it as a mistake -- exaggerate or embellish it and call it a feature!! So I picked up the stitches from each end, knit a couple of rows of garter stitch (yay fuzziness, oh hider of sins and mistakes), then did three increase rows alternating with three plain rows, to create ruffles. Let me tell you, increasing (kfb every stitch) in chenille is NOT fun. Luckily I was being mightily entertained by the Yarn Harlot last Tuesday as I was finishing this project. I'm so proud of it now!