Misgivings and a Tale of the Evil Silk Ribbon

Well, I was playing around with swatching for a scarf. Initially, I had thought of knitting my MD Scarf for my exchange friend, but now I'm thinking of sending it as a Hannakah present for a friend (sorry, secret pal!). You see, I've just finished it and I'm so proud. Then I looked at it and thought to myself, "you know, this is my first hand-knitted gift. I want it to go to someone I know... closer to my heart." Anyhow, I have time till end of Jan '06/early Feb'06. I am so happy to be finished with my first scarf though. I made it four inches wide and sixty inches long.

In the meantime, I swatched on for another project, playing with Artyarns Silk Ribbon. Let me tell you though... this is tempermental stuff. I think I spent all day just unraveling it from the hank very carefully, but periodically it was never careful enough. The darn strands snagged on every tiny thing to my carpet and my dry hands. Also, I had a heck of a time trying to keep it from becoming tangled again while I was unraveling it. Here we are at evening time and I still haven't unraveled all of one hank of the Silk Ribbon yarn. I made butterflies at both ends of what I could, so maybe 60 yards of it are rolled up into manageable balls. I think I'm not going to make a scarf with this yarn. Hope other beginning knitters can learn from my frustrated experience. It's a beautiful yarn and the sheen is lovely, but it is REALLY high-maintenance. Bleah.