FO: Handspunk Cowl

I love it!  When I first thought about combining all the skeins together to knit a cowl, I was expecting the colors to clash a little, but as it turns out, the colors couldn’t be better suited for each other.  And as chance would have it, I had the perfect buttons on hand for the project: the sheep horn buttons I got from Rhinebeck.  I love the natural color of the buttons against all the wild colors of the cowl.

Best part is that I have enough yarn left over to make another cowl, maybe even two.  But just to keep things interesting, I might knit them up with slightly different construction.  Ideas are a-brewing in this knitter’s noggin.  It feels mighty good to be back to knitting.

Project Details

Pattern: My own.  Knit flat in garter stitch, alternating skeins, adding button holes where I thought appropriate.

Yarn: My own handspun from Ashland Merino Top in a variety of colors.

Needles: US 9

 

Back in the Saddle

Or: Dusting off the needles

Or: Getting over the “I’ll do that tomorrow” syndrome

It’s been almost three weeks since I’ve arrived back in the states and I’ve been riding out all the classic excuses for the lack of posts and general productivity, including but not limited to: jet-lag, catching up with friends, organizing my things, establishing a new home… But after a while, those excuses get played out and you just start looking (and feeling) like a bum.  Believe me, there were days that I pulled out my computer with every intention of blogging about Cambodia and South Korea, and then I thought: maybe tomorrow.  That happened a lot.

The truth is that the last three weeks home flew by so fast that I’ve hardly had any time to process anything and now that I have access to all my things again, it’s like I just acquired a bunch of new toys.  There’s so much that I want to do right now, that I hardly know where to start…  Ok, you got me.  I totally know where to start: my yarn stash.  I pulled out my storage bins of yarn and gazed upon the treasures that I left behind.  I felt like I just walked into a yarn store where everything was free.  So many things to touch and sniff and play with, that I couldn’t even grasp the fact that I had to choose only one thing to work on.  Would you believe me if I told you that I haven’t knit a single stitch or taken a deep whiff of merino wool in the last 16 weeks?  I hardly believe it myself.  So you can imagine I was a little overwhelmed with my options.  In the end, after much hemming and hawing, I picked out my first handspun mini-skeins.

I began spinning them at the Knot Hysteria retreat in November and left the retreat with bags full of roving in all kinds of colors.  When I got home, I went on a spinning kick.  I spun four more mini-skeins right off the bat before getting completely distracted with other things (isn’t that just how it always goes?).  I finished plying the last one right before I left on my trip in March.  For as many WIP’s as I have lying around, I just can’t bear to see these linger in that pile for any longer.  I’m knitting a garter stitch cowl and am alternating the skeins every RS row.  There’s no pattern or logic to which skein I pick next; that’s what makes this project the perfect thing to get me back into knitting.  No rules, no pressure.  Just knit stitch.  I love how all the colors are playing nicely with each other.  You wouldn’t think it, looking at them individually, but this is turning into a real winner.

PS. I plan on getting my last month of travels posted on here real soon.  Just bear with me while I get back into the swing of things.