Cowls – Page 2 – Yarn, Books & Roses

MacKenzie Speaks: Done, Done, and Done!!

Hi. I’m MacKenzie.

Cat. — Do you see how innocent I look? I ran out the front door when an Amazon package arrived, forced the Mother of Cats to chase me down in her bathrobe, and then informed her that I needed cookies. What? Cookies are for cats!

A few week ago the Mother of Cats lost control of her stash and cast on project after project. There was an explosion of WIPs. The project bags and plastic containers were everywhere. I was constantly in trouble for knocking things off the table. So excitable, the Mother of Cats. I don’t think that she has her priorities aligned correctly. Cats are first, always. Everyone knows this!

This week she pulled herself together and got things done. Look at this!

Cat and knitting. — I helped myself to a little yarn chomping while she tried to finish the sleeves of her sweater. I kind of like this thick Brown Sheep yarn because you can get a good chomp on it!

Finished sweater. — Monday the Mother of Cats weaved in all of the ends and the sweater was done! Mohair and wool: perfect for cat naps. The Mother of Cats is thinking of knitting me a little blankie from the extra skeins.

Cowl on author. — Tuesday she finished her new cowl.

Cowl on wooden bear. — By Wednesday the cowl was blocked and finished. I think it looks better on the bear, don’t you?

Cat and sock. — Wednesday she concentrated on getting a sock done and I once again helped myself to some chomping. This thin yarn isn’t as fun to chomp and the Mother of Cats actually YELLED at me to stop. What is wrong with her? Yarn (and cookies) is for cats, right?

Socks. — Tonight they came off the needles and she did the finish work. Look! Here they are… done!!

Wow. Suddenly the Mother of Cats needs to clean up the coffee table by her knitting chair. There are empty needles, knitting patterns, project bags, and yarn scraps everywhere. I can hardly get to my bed with all of this chaos around it. Why does the Mother of Cats lack balance? She should learn from me. It is best to spend the day sleeping, eating, chomping cookies, causing trouble (umm… I might have eaten part of a baby rose bush…), and chasing yarn.

Tomorrow she plans to clean up and to get her last two WIPs finished off so she can WIND MORE YARN!! Oh, I really like to wind yarn. That is about my favorite thing in the world. The Mother of Cats would struggle to get things done without me.

I’m such a good boy.

Can I have cookies now?

>^..^<

Notes from the Mother of Cats:

The sweater is the Daelyn Pullover and will be a great cold weather sweater for me. My project notes are here.
The Cowl is the Dissent Cowl; I knit it with MCN in a DK weight from Western Sky Knits. It is very soft, sturdy and warm. Another cold weather star. My project notes are here.
The socks are my own pattern to match my new Clinkerbell Cowl by Casapinka. Project notes are here.
I have to get a pair of mitts and my thrummed mittens finished. Next week! Tomorrow I am going to wind the yarn for a new sweater!! Sturgill, here I come!!

MacKenzie Speaks: WIP Progress

Hi. I’m MacKenzie.

Cat on knitting. — I’m dozing on the new sweater. Don’t you think that this color red looks good with my fur?

Last week I reported on the explosion of WIPs that happen as the Mother of Cats abandoned all good sense and cast on one project after another. So many projects going I can hardly find a place to nap! The Mother of Cats has been busy knitting all week long but she hasn’t managed to get even one little project done. Not one! I keep nagging her to knit faster, but it seems that even that isn’t enough to get things finished around here.

Daelyn Sweater. — But she is making progress on her new sweater!

I like this sweater a lot. Every time she puts it down I move in for some quality sleep. The color is nice, but it’s a standout for just being nice and warm with some optimal squishiness too. There is a lot of this yarn in the stash and I’m hoping that she uses the extra to make a new blanket for my bed. I deserve a new blanket!! Never was there a cat more patient and understanding than me!

There was a little halt in the sweater when the Mother of Cats realized that she needed the needles being used in this mitt to knit the sleeves of the sweater. Oops. She knitted like crazy one afternoon to finish the mitt so that she could go back to the sweater. Now we have only one mitt, and the other one will have to be knitted when the sweater is done. Did the Mother of Cats think of this when she went all crazy and cast on all of these projects? No. She did not. She should listen to me more and concentrate exclusively on meeting my needs. I need cookies more often. I still want a mouse! I keep reminding her every time I check out the garage, but she hasn’t gotten me one yet…

Cowl on cat. — The new cowl is coming right along too. Check out the fun pattern.

Cat wearing knitting. — It really isn’t comfy to wear yet. She needs to take these crazy needles out so I can really cuddle in the yarn. This one is really soft and warm!

Snowy pine. — Look at the icicles in the trees. I wanted to go out to play in the snow, but NOPE! I didn’t get to have any fun.

It got cold and snowed early last week, and the Mother of Cats stayed home a couple of days because she is such a baby. I guess I should be fair… the weather forecast was broken. It was supposed to snow only an inch, and instead there was almost a foot of snow! She did shovel the walks and found these fun icicles in the pines. They made her think of the socks she is making to match her Clinkerbell Cowl, so she also worked on them one evening.

That’s it. Do you see all of this knitting that has been going on, and NOTHING is finished. Okay, there was a mitt done, but she needs to do the other one to wear it. Lazy Mother of Cats. She needs to devote herself to one thing at a time. She needs to listen to me more.

She needs to get me a mouse!!

Sigh.

I’m such a good boy.

Can I have some cookies now?

>^..^<

Notes from the Mother of Cats:

The thrummed mitt is a Warm Paw. I will be making its partner as soon as the sweater is done.
The sweater is Daelyn Pullover.
The cowl is the Dissent Cowl.
The socks are inspired by the Clinkerbell Cowl that I knit last month.

MacKenzie Speaks: An Explosion of WIPs

Hi. I’m MacKenzie.

The Mother of Cats and I have been making really good progress on her new red sweater. I’m in charge of her yarn while she works because the sweater is getting so big that it whaps me in the face while she is working. I think that the Mother of Cats should just be more careful. She is hard to train, but I keep working with her because… cookies!

Sleeping cat — I try to supervise her closely, but frankly all this red is kind of exhausting.

It is kind of hard on me to never be able to sit on the Mother of Cats lap while she is working. This yarn is not as soft as some of the others that she uses, and she says that knitting with this yarn makes her wrists hurt. What a whiny Mother of Cats! She needs to toughen up some more. Maybe she could catch me some mice in the garage… that would make her wrists feel better. Nope. She won’t even consider getting me some fun mice, but she did look around for some other projects for knitting breaks.

Cat and roving. — I reminded her of this really soft roving that her BKB Deb gave her.

That roving is really soft. It would make a great bed for me. Maybe a new cat blanket?! Did she use it for that? No. She did not!

Thrummed mittens. — She used little scraps of the roving to start making these mittens.

The inside of the mittens will have scraps of the roving to make them really soft and warm. She says these are called thrums. I want this for my bed! Why doesn’t the Mother of Cats do what I want? So difficult, the Mother of Cats!

Mitt Cuff. — The Mother of Cats then got bored and started on these wild mitts for her knitworthy niece in California. She wanted to experiment, she said, and needed to work on smaller needles.

Cat paw on knitting. — Ha! There is no way she can keep me off her lap while working on these. There are two balls of yarn! Maximum yarn chomping opportunities!

The Mother of Cats is getting ready to do the thumb for the wild colored mitts, and decided to take a break to plan the knitting on her computer. She says she is thinking. She is just lazy. She hasn’t been petting me and giving me cookies as much as she should. Lazy.

Dissent Cowl — Do you see what she did last night when she should have been catching me a mouse or getting the cookie container out? She started another knitting project! This one is a cowl. Thank heavens it has two yarns. You know how I feel about yarn chomping and extra balls of yarn.

So that is what happened this week. There are so many projects going I can’t keep them all straight. There are more projects than I have cat toys!! Crazy! Completely unacceptable. She needs to go out and get me some more toys, or at least some premium cat nip, or a live mouse at the least. I really want a mouse! Why can’t I have a mouse!!

I don’t think that the Mother of Cats loves me. She should stop knitting and get me that mouse right away!!

I’m such a good boy!

Can I have some cookies now?

>^..^<I

Notes from the Mother of Cats:

I just couldn’t help myself. The yarn for the new Daelyn sweater is hard on my wrists and the ends of my fingers are getting sore. It is wonderful yarn, but not superwash and I think that the mohair is making is a little rough on my fingers. Never mind, I told myself, just cast on another project for a break.

Things immediately got out of control:

The thrummed mittens will be fabulous. The Ravelry project page is here.
The colorful mitts for my niece (Which I blogged about a few weeks ago) are being invented using a booklet from Blue Moon Fiber Arts and another knitter’s project for inspiration. I’m working out the Fair Isle chart for the thumb on my computer now. My project notes with all of that information is here.
The socks are being made using the patterns in the Clinkerbell Cowl. Think of them as little clinkerbells for my feet. 🙂 My project notes are here.
The cowl is the Dissent Cowl. The minute I saw it I knew that I had to start knitting it. Right now the US government is experiencing a partial shutdown, and friends and neighbors around me are struggling because of it. I am also a child of public servants who spent her entire work life working for her community as a medical researcher and teacher, and I dissent!! I absolutely dissent! I plan to wear this cowl as much as possible and hope I don’t have to head off to public demonstrations in the street, but if it happens I will be sporting this fabulous knitted replication of RBG’s dissent necklace. My project notes are here.

I only managed to use up one new skein of yarn this week, but I’m just knitting on and should get some of these projects done eventually. There should be a big jump in the skein count then. Woohoo! Crazy knitting, a serious case of castonitis and stashbusting at its best. It must have been the super blood wolf moon. That’s my story and I am sticking to it.

FO Friday: Week 3, Year 2019

MacKenzie has slept through most of the knitting this week, so I am going to have to post my progress in my own “voice” this week.

Sleeping MacKenzie. — Actually, the only time that I have been able to knit this week has been while he was sleeping.

I think that it is the weather. It snowed over the weekend and the days were gloomy. I had to do errands this week which left him home alone for too many hours; ocicats do not tolerate alone time well. He still misses his brother Yellow Boy. Anyway, when he was up it was all “pet the cat!” all the time. He had absolutely no interest in the knitting or yarn chomping; instead he just climbed on me, head butted my hands to make me pet him and ran his purr engine on high. He is so cute about it the knitting went away each time he showed up at my knitting chair. So, no knitting with cat pictures this week.

In spite of the needy MacKenzie I did get a lot accomplished over the week. Check this out!

Stitch detail of the cowl. — I cast on and started on a Clinkerbell Cowl for myself over the weekend. This MCN DK yarn (another Western Sky Knits score from the Estes Park Wool Market this summer) is just a joy to knit with.

Finished cowl. — By Tuesday I had the cowl done and steam blocked. I just love, love, love this piece and plan to take it out shopping in the snow this afternoon. My Ravelry project notes are here.

I also pulled out a languishing WIP and got knitting on it again. I have several skeins of Brown Sheep yarn that I have had stashed for over 10 years. Now that I am attacking the stash I have pulled myself together and am knitting steadily on this sweater to get it done while it is still cold outside.

Start of sweater. — This is a single ply wool/mohair yarn that is going to be a workhorse for me in this sweater. Can’t you just feel the cushy warmth coming right at you through the picture? You can, can’t you! That’s what I’m talking about.

Progress on my sweater. — Look at how far I got this week!

This sweater is the Daelyn Pullover by Isabell Kraemer, and the second one that I’ve made so I know that it is going to be the perfect warm sweater for casual wear. Okay, let’s be honest. That is just about every day for me these days as I am all about layered wooly comfort that will keep my Raynaud’s under control. This sweater is going to be seeing a lot of wear for sure, hopefully for years to come. My Ravelry project notes are here.

So how am I doing on the 2019 yarn stash challenge? I used up another three skeins of yarn this week!! I am now up to a grand total of 6 skeins for the year; only 44 more to go.

Have a good weekend everyone.

All the Christmas Knitworthies

I’m an addict. Seriously, I need to belong to a support group… oops… that’s literally what my Wednesday morning group meeting is, only those guys support me to buy more yarn, tools, patterns, cookies… Anyway, my name is Midnight Knitter, and I am addicted to knitting. The gateway drug was crochet, but once I got my hands on knitting needles I was gone. I was only eight years old, but the path of my life was already determined; yarn and I would be best buds forever. These days I spin it, dye it, weave it, but mostly I knit with yarn. A lot. A day without knitting is an ugly thing…

Here’s the central truth of my knitting; I will knit many, many sweaters, mitts, dishcloths, and other items of use, but I do hate to part with anything if it isn’t going to a good home. You know, the chunk of knitted love should go to someone who will appreciate it, use it, and maybe even love it a little too. In a word, a person who is knitworthy. Someone who will thank me for the gift. Someone who will give that knitted piece of me a good home. Someone who will take the time to thank me and let me know that they will use their hand knit.

I knitted a lot of Christmas gifts this year. Superwash merino, cashmere, silk and even yak slipped through my fingers, looped over the needles, and grew into fabric that I hoped would bring joy to the person I was creating it for. As Christmas approached the items were wrapped with care, stuffed into boxes, and mailed off to recipients. Little pieces of me, winging off to Christmas trees far away, waiting for Christmas morning to arrive.

Today the first happy picture arrived on my phone. Such a great picture! My whole day was made. Knitworthy!! I asked everyone else for a pic of their presents, and by this evening they had arrived. Look!!

Cousins in knitted goods. — My cousins in snowy southwest Colorado sent the first picture. I was so relieved and happy to see how nice the cowls and hat looked. The cowls are Clinkerbell Cowls by Casapinka, and the purple hat is a Sockhead Slouch Hat by Kelly McClure. Project notes for the cowls are here and here, and if you really want to see some notes on the hat, they are here.

Sister ready for winter. — Then my sister in Oregon sent the happiest picture ever showing off her fingerless mitts and another Sockhead hat. This is her first winter in a colder climate, and those mitts (made of superwash merino, silk, and yak) are already getting a lot of use. The project notes for the mitts have the pattern included.

Daughter-in-law in her cowl. — This evening the picture of the brioche cowl that I made for my daughter-in-law arrived. Her cowl had already been worn for an outing this afternoon, and she told me it was really cushy and warm. The pattern is Purl Soho’s Gina’s Brioche Cowl. Here are my project notes.

Everything fits. Everyone was happy with their gifts, and I’m completely assured that they will put the knitted pieces of love to work. Yay. But wait, there is more. I knitted for the cats this year, too!

Cat and mouse. — My grandkitty Maya attacked her Portly Mouse as soon as I gave it to her. Must have been the catnip.

My son reports that the cats have been flinging the mice around his apartment and that they are being well used. Excellent. Even the cats are knitworthy in this family.

See, we knitters (well, those of us who are addicts like myself…) are actually pretty simple. Send us a happy picture and a nice “thank you” and we have gotten our fix and will now produce knitted goods forever.

Because you are knitworthy!

I hope that you all had a wonderful holiday and that the winter will be kind to you.

The WIP basket is empty!

It took a month, but look at what has happened:

Cat in empty WIP basket. — MacKenzie has a new toy!

Yep. This is an event of such astonishing rarity it makes a blue moon seem common: every single one of the languishing items hanging out in the WIP basket has been finished. The basket is now empty. MacKenzie was all astonishment for at least 20 seconds before he moved in to make the basket his own. It took the whole month of May, but I now have all of my needles and stitch markers back where they belong.

Cowl — The moebius cowl that I was working on is also done. Like my model?

Stitch close-up. — Moebius knitting is really fun. I started with Cat Bordhi’s cast on and then knit from the center outward in garter and blackberry stitch that I had to modify a little to accommodate the circular knitting and my stiff hands. Because this is a moebius the right side has the “up” side of the blackberry pattern, and the left has the “down” side.

Stitch detail. — This is the same cowl with the other side up. I like them both. If the cowl is doubled up or worn draped around the shoulders both patterns show.

I took really good notes while knitting this time so that I can post the pattern in my next blogging adventure. If you want more info you can find my project notes here. That yarn is Tosh Merino DK in the colorway NIght Hawk. I was worried about how it would knit up, but I like the finished project.

I’m off to cast on a shawl using yarn from the stash and a pattern a friend gave me.

MacKenzie, get out of that basket!

Blackberry Cowl

It has been cloudy, snowy, and cold here. I mean, really cold! Freeze your (Raynaud’s) fingers before you know it cold. Knowing this was on the way I bought food and gas a couple of days ago and then settled into the house with cat-magnet blankets with space heater to do some power knitting. This morning Greeley, Colorado, a city an hour’s drive north of me set some sort of record at -32 degrees Fahrenheit (with wind chill it was -47!!). It wasn’t that cold here, but it was still cold.

Wooden bear modeling cowl — This afternoon it warmed up to a blistering +12 degrees F. so I sneaked out to take a shot of my newly finished Moebius cowl. This was knitted with Hedgehog Fibres Merino Singles, which is a squishy single ply worsted weight yarn. Really yummy around the neck.

I finished another of the leftover WIPs from last year this week. This one is a Moebius cowl using garter and blackberry stitch in a pattern that I sort of winged as I knit. I like it! Here’s what is crazy about Moebius knitting: the cowl is knitted from the middle out, and the pattern is “up” on one side of the cowl, and “down” on the other.

The cowl is just the right length to wrap twice around my neck to stay warm, and it also will drape nicely when just worn as it is.

Yarn detail — See.. beautiful jewel tones. This colorway is called Dragonfly.

I like the blackberries the most, so I will wear the cowl the way I took this picture, but it is just as easy to wear it with the other stitch pattern (which looks vaguely woven) facing out.

So, this is my own pattern. I really like how it came out, and I have some cool Madelinetosh yarn that is dying be a cowl too, so I’m fighting an urge to immediately cast on to make another one. I wonder how that yarn will look in blackberries? This yarn was worsted weight and the new one is DK. Will it make any difference? It’s like an experiment!! I used a little more than one skein on this cowl; maybe I can come up with some cool fingerless mitts with the rest of the yarn. Lots of knitting ahead of me.

It warms up this weekend, but looks like I’ll still be on the power knitting drive!

Have a good weekend everyone.

MacKenzie Speaks: Three UFO are Done!

Hi. I’m MacKenzie.

The Mother of Cats says it is fall now, but it is still nice and warm out here in the garden. I love the garden.

Leaves — The leaves on the maple tree are starting to turn funny colors, so maybe she is right about fall. Look at that!

The weather has been cooler this week and she has been sitting outside with us knitting away on the projects that she is calling the UFO pile. Yellow Boy is worried that UFOs are a new kind of bug, and has been hunting for them at the back of the house, but I’m pretty sure it’s stuff with yarn. I love yarn!

Hawkshaw Cowl — This thing called a cowl was done first. I really like this yarn… so cushy to squish with my paws, and the absolutely best chomping size. She calls it worsted. Whatever.

The finished cowl is just the right size for a little sleeping pad. For some reason she took it away from me and put it into a storage box to wait for winter. Bad, Mother of Cats, bad!!

She has also been knitting some of the nice yarn that came from Alta Vida Alpacas. She dyed this yarn in her crock pot, and no matter how many times I visit her in the knitting chair she absolutely, positively will not let me play with it. She says that it is special. Hey, I’m special! I think that she needs to pays better attention to her priorities. Cats should come first!

Alpaca Cowl — So, the cowl got done without much help from me. It’s a Moebius, what ever that is. She says it means that as you hang it around your human neck and fold it the little blackberries are all facing up.

Cat paw on yarn — I like the little blackberries….

Cat snoozing on cowl — They are really, really nice and soft to take a snooze on. I need lots of sleep. Taking care of the Mother of Cats is exhausting.

Finally today she got a third project finished and took it outside to take her little pictures. Yellow Boy and I were completely ignored while she tried hanging her shawl in different places in the yard. She hung it in the tree, on the fence, across the garden bench, and on the deck. I’d like to mention that the deck is totally my territory…

Shawl — I tried to help her as much as I could. It’s not my fault that she tripped over me by the tree: she should be more careful! I tried to help her arrange the shawl on this garden bench, but she chased me away and put one of the stupid garden plants there instead.

Close-up of Lace — Then she put it on the deck for a shot of the lace. Do you see my paw? No, you don’t. She wouldn’t let me stand on it. Don’t you think that this shawl would look better with a cat?

Shawl and Cat — There. That’s what I’m talking about. Don’t I look nice?

She is so happy to have these projects done and has been collecting up all the knitting needles back into their storage cases again. I’m so glad that I could help her. I’m such a good boy!

Can I have a cookie now?

The Mother of Cats would like to mention that the the project notes for her little UFOs can be found on Ravelry:

Hey, what happened to all of my knitting needles?

Having dyed the most scrumptious yarn ever, I began the hunt for the correct size needles to cast on and knit a cowl to dye for. Little problem, people: I seem to be missing the correct size tips for the project in mind. In fact, there seem to quite a few needles and tips missing… you know what happened next. I went on a UFO hunt.

OK, if you are reading this blog post looking for information on extra-terrestrials, go away. Once I posted an article titled “UFO Hunt” to this blog and generated a lot of activity and even a couple of messages signaling how disappointed people were with the “click-bait” false advertising. Go away right now. I’m not saying that I don’t believe in life out there in the universe, I just want to find the black hole UFO’s that have sucked down those needles!

Oh dear. After about a half hour of tossing the stash and going through baskets, bags, and looking in the car (Hey, you can’t expect me to be caught without something to knit. I always travel with a project!), the following UFO’s were located.

Unfinished Mitts — These mitts came out of one of my project bags. The pink mitts just need their thumbs and finishing, and it looks like I hated thumbs so much I cast on another pair of mitts. Don’t ask. There were two pairs of needles here.

Unfinished Cowl — and out of another bag came this cowl. OK, it was in the car. Under a blanket. Sorry little guy, I’ll finish you up too. Another needle found, but not the size I’m looking for.

Unfinished Shawl — Wow, I totally forgot about this shawl. This is a Benevolence Shawl that I was knitting in a cotton and alpaca mix yarn for summer. Technically, I still have a week of summer left. Don’t think I’ll make it…

Unfinished Sweater — More needles! This is the start of the Guernsey Pullover from the latest issue of Vogue Knitting. I started it in a rush of longing for fall color during a rainy afternoon. There were several needles in the bin with the sweater, including the size that I needed. Gee, this is going to be a great sweater. It would be nice to get it done before the snow arrives…

Well, no wonder I seem to be missing needles. Here they are, all hard at work supporting fiber art life forms struggling to get born. I need a new queue just to decide which UFO to knit first. I thought about putting the names of the projects on slips of paper in a jar, and then I would just pull out the name of the next project that would get finished. Maybe I should have two jars; one for large projects (sweaters and shawls) and one for small ones (mitts and cowl). Hey, that actually might be a good idea. I could knit small projects on sunny days and large ones on rainy days. It could be a plan. I could even have a jar with the names of projects waiting to be started. Oops. I suddenly had a visual of slips jar hopping from the “waiting” to the “UFO” jars. Might be a problem.

Forget the jars. Don’t you want to know what did I did? I cast on the new alpaca cowl onto those size 6 needles I was hunting for, of course. I have knit for three days like a demon and I’m now coming down the home stretch. Doesn’t it look nice?

OK, this isn’t a queue, but it is a list of all these poor, neglected UFOs. Here are their project notes on Ravelry:

Scleroderma Mitts – my notes include the pattern.
Hawkshaw Cowl
Benevolence Shawl
Guernsey Pullover
Alpaca Berry Cowl – my notes include the pattern

Have a good weekend everyone. Hope you all get some knitting done!

Alpaca Blues: Knits from the Crockpot

I was so happy with the yarn and the sample I made from my first crock pot dyeing adventure I was empowered to gather up my courage to dye some more yarn. Two more projects have emerged from the crock pot.

A bit of heaven for the head: A few weeks ago I tied together the leftovers of bulky huacaya alpaca left over from earlier hat and mitts and dyed them a darker indigo using the same infusion and no-stir method I employed the first time around. The yarn was nice, but blotchy, so I overdyed it with a little more indigo to even it out. This week I knitted the yarn into a hat. What do you think?

Here is the hat. Kind of manly, isn’t it? (Okay, that isn’t a shock as this is an adaptation of the Man Hat by Haven Ashley), but I like the feel of it on my head so I started to think about how to infuse a little cute factor…

Yarn and Hat — I had this much yarn left. Hmmm…

Rosette on Hat — Bam! Knitted rosette is just the solution that I was looking for. I found the pattern for this one in Knitting in the Details by Louisa Harding. I’m debating attaching a bead or button to the middle of the rosette. How about something that looks like a bone button? If you are looking for more details the project is here on Ravelry.

The yummiest cowl ever: that went so well I plugged in the pot and added two skeins of premium sport weight alpaca from Alta Vida Alpacas. I have to be honest here; this is the yummiest fiber I have ever handled and it was a little stressful to wet it down, pour some vinegar over it and add the dye. Still, what could go wrong? Worst case, I decided I would just call up Cari at Alta Vida Alpacas and offer to pay for the yarn. There. What’s to worry about?

What a baby I am. The yarn came out fine.

Swatch and notebook — Since I’m recording notes about the dye efforts in the notebook I planned out the cowl I want to knit in the same location. I am making a cowl like an earlier one I made in this sport weight alpaca yarn. Here is the swatch that I posted about earlier (link at the top of this post); by laying it over the original cowl I was able to figure out the stitch count to make this one. If you’re interested the original cowl is this one on Ravelry.

Knitting — I cast on Friday using the directions for a Moebius cast on by Cat Bhordi online. Since this is a moebius the knitting started in the middle of the garter section and both edges of the cowl get knitted at the same time. I’m in the blackberry stitch now; at the top of the picture the berries are “up” and at the bottom they are “down”. Fun, huh. This yarn is just yummy; it is developing a little bloom as I work. I’m writing down the pattern as I go so I can get it written up when I’m done. What do you all think of my fun little notebook?

I’ve run out of alpaca to dye, but I found some white handspun last night that is temping me. Time to plug in the crock pot again. Wait. I have an old vegetable steamer. Maybe I should paint the yarn this time and put it into the steamer…

Oh, I am having fun now!

Have a good weekend everyone.

Note: I feel that I should mention that I have two crock pots: one is for cooking, and the other is for dyeing. They are in different colors and left in different places so I don’t get them mixed up. If I use the veggie steamer it will be joining the dye crockpot in the garage and won’t be used for cooking any more. Best to always use an abundance of caution.