Sometimes you just know that a project isn’t working. Sometimes you keep knitting anyway, in the hopes that your “fix” will work.

Sometimes it doesn’t.

Really, I’ve known since I finished the first skein (of four) that the gift scarf isn’t going to work out. I kept telling myself that the nagging “not working” feeling was because I didn’t like the yarn (I don’t), or maybe because it’s just not my color (it isn’t). I reminded myself that this isn’t for me, and that the recipient and I have very different tastes in just about everything. That didn’t make the nagging any quieter.

After finishing the first skein, I noticed that the edges of the scarf were beginning to roll. I didn’t like that, but I figured it would come out with blocking. So, I blocked it on the needles. Twice. Still curled a little bit. If this were a natural fiber, that amount of curling would have been easily overcome with a good soak. Microfiber has no memory, so blocking really didn’t do much.

I decided to add a picked up garter stitch border, thinking that it should give the edges the extra stability that they needed. I just finished the first long side this morning.

It looked ok, except that the pattern was puffing out at the edges a tiny bit (which I now know will probably not be solved by blocking…).

And when I hold it up, it does this:

Nope. Not working at all. While I know that tastes differ, I don’t know anyone that would want a scarf curled like a cinnamon stick. And so I’m off to do what I knew I should have done all along. It’s coming out.

At least I was finished a week early, right? Still time enough for gift re-knitting…