“Mommy Dearest” asked me to make a scarf for her bestie in her favorite color. Even though I only sort of like my Mom on occasion, I adore her best friend. In fact, I kind of wish she were my Mom. Since said best friend is a muggle and couldn’t care less what the fiber content is, I’m using a soft acrylic. At least it will be launder-able if the need should arise. I’m tired of gifting pricey fiber projects to people who may appreciate the hand-made quality of a gift but are clueless about medium content, and wouldn’t know silk from nylon. I’ll save the yummy fibers for myself or fiber-philic recipients, thank you. Besides, as long as the acrylic is soft, I don’t mind knitting with it at all.

I do want to make a point about blocking acrylic. YES, acrylic can be blocked!!! In fact it should be blocked!!! You can readily see a big difference in my before/after photos. The drape I achieved after blocking was nothing short of exquisite! The great thing about blocking acrylic is it’s set in forever. I will blog about this in the near future so stay tuned, but here’s how I blocked this scarf:

I have one of those Rowenta Professional irons that steam vertically and horizontally, but I’m sure a regular steam iron would work just fine. I had not used Caron Simply Soft before, so with an acrylic I’m not familiar with I usually use a pressing cloth to start out with. I found with this yarn I was quickly able to get rid of it. I just hovered my iron about a 1/2 inch above the scarf and would blast it with steam. DO NOT TOUCH THE IRON DIRECTLY TO THE KNITTING; IT WILL MELT. I worked with the scarf perpendicular to the ironing board, so the weight of the scarf would help me open up the lace work. I think I ended up making 3 passes to get the drape I achieved allowing each section to dry for about 5 minutes or so before moving over to the next. I would pat and shape as I went. Keep repeating until you get the drape and look you want to achieve. This method is referred to as “killing” the yarn and it is permanent. You won’t need to reblock after subsequent washings.

I hadn’t any modifications to the pattern. The pattern was very clear and concise. This would be the perfect first lace project for a novice knitter. I think wanna-be-mom will be very happy with it!

BTW…The color is truest in the 1st, 5th and 6th pics.