Tuesday 19 February 2013

Clearly the world is ending

You may have noticed that I'm a bit keen on scarves. Knit and crochet several every year, never leave home without one keen. They make me deeply happy, and I'm not even sure why. They just do.

Cowls, on the other hand, have never really pushed my buttons. They're cute, and I can see them being good templates for designing, but I never thought I'd actually wear one. Then last summer I spun up my Zombie Apocalypse yarn, from fiber that Weaving Friend and I had dyed last March. I ended up with 150 yards of a very squishy heavy worsted and nothing to do with it.

Ravelry to the rescue! A lovely person on one of my boards posted a link to a crocheted cowl pattern that looked as if it would work nicely with my yarn. And wouldn't you know, it was perfect. I used up every last scrap of handspun, and produced a respectably-sized cowl.

Zombie cowl 005

I had to wear it once, since I'd just made it and all. Turns out that cowls are actually pretty comfortable. Plus bonus points for no bulk under the front of my coat. It turned to snow a few days later - something that doesn't fit snugly doesn't really offer that much protection - but I wore it every single day up until that point. And now that it's warming up again, I may very well get it out to wear tomorrow!

Friday 1 February 2013

Sludge, but a nice sludge

I had a lot of the yarn that I turned into my Owls sweater. 19 balls of it, in fact. It was in the John Lewis clearance sale, and I bought it back before I had any idea how much yarn it took to make a me-sized sweater.12 balls made the sweater, and that was with the yarn held trebled. I could probably have gotten two me-sized sweaters out of it if I'd wanted them to be DK-weight and STILL had leftover yarn. Mostly I picked it because I loved the colour. Still do, in fact. The goal was to create something that was good for slobbing around in and doing dirty jobs in the cold. This delightful shade of sludge is perfect for that.

Zombie cowl 006

As it happened, the seven balls that remained after the Owls were just right for yet another scarf. Garter stitch, again with the yarn trebled. I used six balls for the scarf itself, and the final ball for the fringe. Oh, how I loathe attaching fringe! But it really does make the scarf look finished, so it's worth the hassle.

It's a long scarf. I can wrap it 'round my neck several times and still have it hang to my knees. And thanks to the trebled yarn, it's incredibly warm. And just wide enough (20 stitches on 8mm needles) to cover my entire throat without being so wide I feel strangled.

Sorry, Mom, I don't think you're going to get this one after all!