Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Spinning and Spiral Cowl

This past weekend's spinning retreat was a welcome break from lots of cold outdoor activities on the farm! Our local spinning guild has had an annual overnight get-together for as long as it's existed (over 25 years?), and I've now started to feel like one of the old-timers, having attended perhaps the past 15 years. We rented a lovely house on a lake, and I fully enjoyed the usual sharing of patterns, techniques, ideas, opinions, and wonderful home-cooked food. Our group is very diverse, but all are generous in their teaching and I have learned so much from these friends. It's fun to see the variety of projects and to learn about the different fibers that everyone enjoys. (The green fiber above is mohair that Sheri dyed and below is wool from Sylvia's sheep that she dyed for a coat).My goal was to spin my own alpaca yarn and knit a Spiral Cowl (the free pattern can be found here), and I completed all but the final touches over the weekend.
I wanted to make it for my new grey and red reversible alpaca coat, and it does look great with it (though that picture didn't turn out well). It was a very fun and fairly simply knit, and I have already cast on to do another in Noro silk garden yarn. The button (shown above) which gathers it closer for warmth is made from bone, and I'd been saving it for a special project since buying it in Alaska nearly 5 years ago. This was the first time I'd done a picot edging, and I loved it! Pin It Now!

1 comment:

Dianne MacDonald said...

It turned out great! One more thing to add to my to-do list!