Friday, December 24, 2010

A tale of two cowls!

Merry Christmas Eve! It's a quiet one around here - the husband and I are sticking around here since air fare is redonkulous. A couple of weeks ago I made a few kinds of Christmas cookies. We ate all of those. So I whipped up a second batch of cookies yesterday morning - snickerdoodles and meringue surprises. This is the first time my meringue cookies approximated success!
Christmas

And the surprise? Chocolate chips.
Christmas

The subject of this post is not COOKIES! It's a tale of two cowls. For that is what I have knit lately. I needed something quick to knit up and I found the Birthday Cowl. Exactly the thing I needed. And the yarn? Some of my much hoarded Jade Sapphire Cashmere. The thing is like butter.
Cashmere cowl

I increased a bit at one end to create a flare. It's soft and warm to wear, but isn't very fashion forward.
Cashmere cowl
Cashmere cowl

Cowl #2 has been in the works for a while. But it's been a slow knit. Churchmouse's Bias Loop Cowl. It's knit in lace weight yarn and is a simple simple pattern. But beautiful. I knit it a few needle sizes down (Size 9!) with Malabrigo lace. My neck is sensitive and can't take mohair, or even alpaca, but Malabrigo lace gives that sort of halo with amazing softness.
Cowl

Instead of a kitchener graft, I did a three needle bind off. It's not invisible, but it saved me a lot of grief. And I have been and will be wearing this cowl all the time. I might be making these for gifts one year.
Cowl

And those are the cowls. Both soft and warm, but one will be worn a lot more than the other.

Sunday, December 19, 2010

A sad hat

There's been no Christmas knitting this year. No one is getting a knitted gift from me. Instead I've been huddled under my blanket, too cold to knit most nights. There has been a bit of knitting, here and there.

Like the sad hat. I call it sad because it was a failed experiment. I thought, I'll use this ball of Cascade 220 to make a cabled hat. And I won't follow a pattern! I'll just make it up as I go along! What can go wrong?

A lot.

Sad Hat

I'm not sure the picture conveys the full sorrow of the hat. First off, it pulls in on an especially cable heavy row. Second, the lack of planning contributes to an unfortunately organic look. If the thing were dyed pink it would look like my brain was sitting out.

Sad Hat

It fit, I give it that much. But that's all it gets. Except for frogged.

Sad hat

I frogged it this evening. No more sad hat.