Actually, I Don’t Love It …

It was Thanksgiving Day 2012 when I got a text from my dear friend Sara saying that her knitting pattern, Love Actually is All Around had been accepted to Knitty.

There are many reasons I decided to knit this cowl.

Support my friend Sara by knitting her pattern.

Support another friend by using SpaceCadet Yarn.

Have a clue what was happening with the KAL that SpaceCadet hosted on our Ravelry group, since I’m a mod over there.

Learn a new technique (that’s always a good idea!)

 I had taken Sara’s pictures for her submission to Knitty, and I’ll admit that those are much better than the two I snapped of my finished cowl before it went off to live in the SpaceCadet samples bin.


Double knitting is a cool technique. It yields a two-sided tube that is identical on both sides in the way a negative is identical to the photographic print it creates (Yep. I’m old. I used to develop/print my own pictures!) I had a few hiccups on the “inside” of the cowl. Once I figured it out and had hit the halfway point of the project, I was ready to be done. But I persevered, and finished it anyway.

Yay, learning a new technique! I doubt I’ll run to double knitting any time soon, but hey, now I know how to do it!

Love Actually Cowl 

Pattern: Love Actually is All Around by Sara Bench 

Size: Cowl-sized 

Yarn: SpaceCadet Creations Astrid 

Colors: Heartbeat and Torment (both were Poor Plutos, having small flaws) 

Amount: One skein of each 

Needles: US 8 

Started: 15 February 2013 

Finished: 9 May 2013 

Mods: HAHAHAHAhahahaha … No mods. Just mistakes!

WiP Wednesday

I am a complete failure as a hermit. Seriously. I‘d pay to just hide in my weaving room and ignore the world, but I couldn’t do it guilt-free.

The Color Affection for Sairy’s Mommy has been finished and sent on its way, and I’ve chipped away at my Swirl a little bit, but there’s no real progress, so no new picture.

 I’ve been doing a little bit of knitting. I volunteered to knit two cowls for a group on Ravelry. I started (and finished) the first one over the weekend.


It’s a Sherbrooke Cowl, which I’ve made once before. It needs a soak and some end-weaving, then it’ll get the full finished project treatment. Cowl #2 was started last night.


It’s a Darkside Cowl, and I’m one repeat in.

Stash yarn for both of these, which is awesome. And they’re quick. Yay!

The weaving is for a Christmas gift, so no pictures. Speaking of which, I’d better get back to work!

Over a Yard of Indulgence

Every so often, it’s nice to splurge.

When Bloomin’s shipment of Fleece Artist/Handmaiden arrived at the store, it included batches of Sea Silk and Camelspin. Both were beautiful, and neither is appropriate for socks. So what is a non-shawl-knitter to do? My answer was to think outside the box.


We’ve had a store sample of the Churchmouse pattern Annabella’s Cowl for over a year. But that sample was knit far shorter than the pattern. This sucker measures at 40” in its natural state.


Believe it or not, it does stretch out far wider and is a nice cozy true cowl. What does that mean? It means it can be worn as a hood or down around your neck. It’s not too tight when it’s all smushed down, but here’s Baxter modeling it as a hood:


This was knit using one skein of Camelspin and three of Blue Sky Alpaca Silk. And I used every last centimeter of each yarn. Don’t believe me? Check out the three green boxes in this picture:


From left to right, that’s where the Camelspin ran out, the tail of the Blue Sky so I could finish the last 12 stitches of bind-off with the Blue Sky held doubled, and the loop with the end of the Blue Sky after the bind-off was finished.

I used Jeny’s Surprisingly Stretchy Bind-Off until about the last 12 stitches. Then I switched to a regular bind-off, worked loosely, since I was justifiably worried I wasn’t going to have enough yarn to secure the rest of those stitches.

So the whole thing is super long. Big enough for a two-bear cozy, actually


And I’m quite happy with the final product. It will be a luxurious winter accessory during the cold months ahead. Totally worth it.

Annabella’s Cowl

Pattern: Annabella’s Cowl by Churchmouse Yarns and Teas
Yarns: Handmaiden Camelspin, Blue Sky Alpaca Silk/Blueberry
Quantity: One skein Camelspin, three skeins Blue Sky
Source: Bloomin Yarns
Needles: US 10, 16” KA Switch needles
Started: 6 October 2011
Finished: 9 December 2011
Mods: Knit an extra inch of stockingette to start. Mostly because I wasn’t paying attention.
Not like it mattered. At all.

WiP Wednesday

Sooooo, the Swirl took a swim yesterday. The wash water was almost navy as it went down the drain. Here’s hoping most of the loose dye is gone.

It’s currently drying via fan in my old bedroom. With any luck, it will get its seam and I’ll be wearing it by the end of Hurricane Knitters tonight.


Last week was pretty much focused on the Swirl, unless I was in a waiting room here or there. That’s when my cowl came out.


Cowl accompanied by possibly my favorite project bag purchase EVAR. It’s a Stitched by JessaLu bag, and I really love it!
I joined the second skein of Blue Sky at breakfast on Thursday morning. I’ve chugged along adding about 9” since picture day last week. The darning needle marks the spot where I joined the new skein.

And with that, it’s back to the grindstone. This is a horribly busy week for me, so rest assured that I'm writing as fast as I can.

Herringbone Möbius

There are a few perils of working at a yarn store. One of them is walking in to a new shipment of yarn when it’s immediately obvious that you’re going to call it George. It happens to me about once a year, usually in the fall when the new stuff comes in.

You may remember seeing these beauties showing up on this here blog a few weeks ago:


Manos Maxima, and they're beautiful. After working with them, I would say that my initial instinct was correct. Malabrigo with better variegated colors. Very nice.

So I picked a project that would show off the yarn. A simple Möbius with a stitch pattern that was going to look good on both sides.


I picked the “Herringbone Rib” stitch from the Harmony Guides. I’m sure it’s in the knit/purl book, but I pulled card #32 out of my “101 Stitches to Knit” card box. Why use the cards instead of the book? The cards are charted. The Harmony Guide book is not.

I also did my “standard” möbius bind-off, an applied I-cord. I love the way it looks and for me, that makes the extra time and yarn worth it.


Oh yeah. The bind-off. I kind of ran out of yarn when I was about 60% finished with the bind-off. Fortunately, I knew that CelticQueen had purchased this same yarn out of the same shipment and she was kind enough to let me mooch enough of her yarn to finish my project.

It’s longer than I had planned (oops) but I’m still a fan. I forget how much I enjoy möbius knitting until I have one on the needles. Then I remember. Must remember more often!

Herringbone Möbius

Pattern: Card #32 from 101 Stitches to Knit by Interweave and Cat Bordhi’s Möbius cast-on
Yarn: Manos Maxima
Color: Beehive
Yardage: 2+ skeins, roughly 500 yards
Needles: US 9/5.5mm KnitPicks Options
Started: 14 September 2010
Finished: 2 October 2010
Mods: Not really a mod, but I cast on 304 stitches for a multiple of 16 to work with my chosen stitch pattern, which means each round was 608 stitches or 38 repeats. Probably should have done something more like 256. Oh well.

Stonehenge

Greetings, and welcome to the first HPWT Finished Project of 2010!



The Stonehenge Cowl by Susan Pandorf was started on Dec. 30, 2009, so I had something simple to work on when the Hubster and I went to see Dreamgirls at Heinz Hall that evening. (NOTE: Lace knitters who like the Lord of the Rings series probably want to head over to Susan's website and check out the Evenstar Mystery Shawl KAL. It looks like it's going to be an epic quest!)

Color is most true in this shot and the other un-modeled shot.

The show was decidedly “meh” (and it didn’t help that spotlights-into-dark-audience gave me a splitting headache in the second act) but the cowl is a winner.



I’m far from excited about the yarn I used for this project, Rowan Lima, but I think this is an example of a perfect yarn-to-pattern match making the whole shebang work well together for what I believe will become a much-loved finished project.



This yarn doesn’t show a lot of stitch definition, but the slip-stitch ribbing shows up very well, making the Pi-shapes reminiscent of Stonehenge. It’s a splitty chained yarn, but I think it will make for a very cosy cowl.

Stonehenge Neck Warmer

Pattern: Stonehenge Neck Warmer by Susan Pandorf
Yarn: 2 skeins Rowan Lima (I estimate that I used about 200 of the 218 yards)
Color: Amazon
Needles: US 9/5.5mm KA Switch 24” circulars
Started: 30 December 2009
Finished: 12 January 2010
Mods: None