Italian girl knitted a scarf once, failing to retain love (9)
I believe the answer is:
francesca
'italian girl' is the definition.
'francesca' can be an answer for 'girl' (woman's name). I'm unsure of the 'italian' bit.
'knitted a scarf once failing to retain love' is the wordplay.
I cannot really understand how this works, but
'a' could be 'an' and 'an' is present in the answer.
This explanation may well be incorrect...
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for francesca that I've seen before include "Paolo's lover (Dante)" , "Girl's name (Italian for French)" , "girl" , "Piero della --, Renaissance painter" .)