Rose City Yarn Crawl Cowls and Scarf

I have been going through quick little projects from last year's Rose City Yarn Crawl patterns. I bought from two stores, but for some odd reason didn't receive patterns from them.  Some of the shops weren't clear on their purchase - receive a free pattern deal. Rachel and Stacey had a handful of patterns and shared their copies with me. Showed you the two cowls from one skein of Blue Moon Fiber Arts Luscious Single Silk (LSS) -

Winter Solstice Bridgetown Loop Cowl

Winter Solstice Cracklin Rosie Cowl

One I'm most likely keeping, the other will become a gift.

I finally finished the fuzzy mohair scarf that's in the Delphi Lace pattern:

Its plenty long at 67 inches and 7 inches wide, so nice around your shoulders and a good length if you want to keep the front of you warm too. I don't wear scarfs really. Don't really care for mohair either. Surprisingly this didn't make me itch like the last time I tried knitting mohair. This is a soft fuzzy not scratchy fuzzy too. Still in the gift pile!

I decided that while the Cabled Confection Cowl pattern looked really simple, since it also had a moebius cast-on it would be a cool new thing to learn. Yes, it was my first foray into the world of moebius! I used Cat Bordhi's video here to get started. She does a really great job of doing various videos!

Here is my Cabled Confection Cowl still on the needles

Glacier Bay Cabled Confection Cowl

I used up a good portion of a skein of Lion Brand Amazing. The yarn is nice and soft and will remind you of a Noro Kureyon, without its roughness. I think the colorway gives it a little more punch than a solid. What do you think?

I think I did find a couple of knots while knitting. I started out Monday morning and knit while at spinning group and took it with me to the Wheel of Time Memory of Light book signing. I had just a few rows left by the end of the book signing and did the cable row in the middle of the Q&A.  I forgot to bring a pair of scissors with me so just left the knots where they were. You have to kind of hunt to find them. I think this might become a gift, or I may decide it should become something else. For now its done!

I tried several different needles and yarns to try to cast on for the Raindrops on Roses Cowl but was having a terrible time getting started. So I took the yarn for the Rain Shadow Cowl and got started with it. Its a nice simple four row repeat pattern that is quick to memorize and be done in a day. I used my leftover Araucania Wool Solids in yellow. I'd used it for the shrug and tam and had a few small balls to use. Since it is a good wool, I just spit spliced my ends together and was happy to used up the bits. It makes a nice cowl that isn't too close to the neck but will keep you warm.

I also like the brightness of the yellow, so think it will brighten up someone's winter wearing it. Yes, the gift pile!

After completing that one, I really wanted to get the Raindrops on Roses done. I don't have a sixteen inch circular knitting needle, so I was going up to a twenty inch and worsted weight instead of the called for sport weight. I bounced around my odd single ball stash and decided that a skein of Naturally Caron might do the trick. I liked the lavender color and other than being a wool-acrylic blend with a loose twist it worked out well. It gives a nice stitch definition and lets the bobbles stand out as well as the roses.

Okay, I'm not sure which are supposed to be the raindrops honestly. I think the bobbles are supposed to be raindrops? The center design is supposed to be roses, but honestly neither work for me as roses or raindrops. It does end up with a nice drape with doing it on the bigger yarn and needles and not so tight on the neck. Because of the higher acrylic content, I think it will work as a nice cowl to wear well into spring. It's still going into the gift pile because I don't wear a lot of cowls either. ;-)

So this gives me five entries into the KAL/CAL and I have one more pattern I can start, but I doubt I will get finished by Monday the 18th. It's Cindy's Who Are You? socks pattern. I do have a pair of socks I need to knit for a friend, but Saturday is also Carnevale. Some scroll painting, a bit of sewing, getting largess bags ready and the actual event is going to cut into my knitting time! I'm going to cast on today and see how things go, but I'm not holding my breath on this getting done in time for it to be an entry. I'll still get a nice pair of socks for Carina out starting them though. ;-)

Baby Set for Rowan

Last weekend was Whitney's baby shower for little Rowan. She's already for him to come any day now. I had a migraine just before the shower so wasn't able to finish on time so had to wait until this weekend to give it to her.  She squeed after opening the box. I think she likes all of them.

I was going to do another cardigan but I really just liked the way the Baby Sophisticate looks. Whitney's favorite color is a forest green and Ryan's is black, so I found yarns to match and then which would go where. Whitney also has bees as a personal item, so found a cute bee button.

I did go looking through baby hats and thought about doing a hood that looked kind of medieval, but seemed like it was geared for an older child. So went back to the Baby Blue hat because I liked how it would work for a newborn and be worn for several months as he grows.

Then booties. I liked the Gansey booties that I made last year. Just wasn't feeling them though for this set. So went back through my queue and thought that I could make the Chaussons Mignons two colored, so went with those. They are so tiny! Perfect for little newborn toes.

So you can see the bottom sole

You decide how to sew them on the top so that it crosses that way.

The complete set:


Not sure why it won't center.

He'll be a well dressed baby! Now he just has to arrive. ;-)

2013 Cowls, Hexipuffs and Thorn

I admit that the Cracklin Rosie Cowl was for some quick satisfaction. Gave me a bit of work though. ;-) I wasn't marking down my repeats and so I did four of the Textured Stitches section instead of three, but of course didn't figure this out until I was almost done with the third on the second half of the cowl. So rather than just increasing it to also be four, I frogged back to that point and re-knit it all. I'm glad I did. It's a wide long cowl that acts like a boob holder but I like it.

Since there was leftover LSS and another cowl in the group that looked interesting, Bridgetown Loop. Stacey had knit it in the suggested sport weight yarn, but I thought it looked kind of thin. I shortened the number of repeats from 16 to 13 and on the picked up bridge edge had to compensate for that so that they sat correctly. I could tell that it was getting about as wide as I was going to want it, so also shortened the bridges down. I have a wee bit of leftover yarn, but not enough to have followed the pattern exactly. I finished this, then blocked it. Haven't tried it on yet, but I love the cabled edge.

Check out my Ravelry project on Bridgetown loop to see the sport weight version I sampled.

I worked on these getting five Haversacks ready to be donated as largess at Ursulmas. We didn't go, but as co-largess coordinator, I needed something for the Baroness to take. So I had fun with the learning curve on how to sew and assemble these haversacks. It totally made sense after completing the first one and stop making assumptions on how things were assembled. You finish with the lining correctly on the inside and just have to sew the inside edge under the flap of the bag.

 Inside of the haversack all filled with the largess items. They were nicely stuffed and should give us a good representation in the Kingdom.

Some people are more familiar with messenger bags or pilgrim bags instead of haversacks. Same bag, different names. Can make it interesting and challenging when talking to people about what you need to have done.

One of the last states of the Fuzzy Delphi Scarf for the Rose City Yarn Crawl Knit Along:

Mohair isn't easy to knit with! So not going as fast as I would like. :-( May have to knit up another cowl!

Sunday I went to Twisted to join in on a Hexi-puff along.  I brought my finished puffs and donated two, one for me and one for Dawn-Marie. The donations got us each an extra two mini-skeins. So I bought another two and with my four I was able to complete seven puffs and still have a tiny bit leftover of the red:

Technically four 'solids' out of each of the mini-skeins. The black-purple in the top right is one of the solids, though it self-striped. Combined the light lavender with the purple to get the striped on the bottom left. Still had some of the light purple leftover and combined with the black-purple. Still had black-purple leftover so did four rows in the red, trying to center them. I like the purples and how the striping came out. Not sure exactly what all the yarns are from, but fun to dip into their big jar and add some colors into the quilt. I have 28 finished now. I can either donate one of these or another from my stash when I go back. I'm going to try to go back again this next Sunday if the $5 is in the budget. There's a yarn crawl coming up after all!

My Thorn looks like this:

I have a boy baby set to complete and then was invited to another baby shower, so will have to come up with a girly baby set. The request was for very girly things. So expect to see some baby sets soon! Also want to knit a hat for Brandon's co-worker. Have until the 18th to finish any Rose City Yarn Crawl Knit Alongs.