Stiff Material

[elfhelm]

Hey everyone,

I'm working on my second project and I'm having something of a dilemma. The first scarf I made was out of Paton's Decor and was adequately soft. My second, one, however, is being knitted with TLC Essentials, 100% acrylic and the material feels very stiff to me.

Here's a photo of it:



My questions is: is this just the nature of the yarn, or am I knitting too tight? I tried to knit more loosely on this than my previous scarf, but I can't seem to. Should I rip it out and wait until I can find larger needles (7US is the largest I have), or will washing soften it up? Also, the stripes are Paton's Classic Merino Wool, so I probably should wash the whole thing by hand, right?