OTN: January 4, 2013

Well Happy New Year to you! How are you? Did you enjoy the holidays? There's been a bit of knitting going on around Casa del Quilter. You see there were these two skeins of Tosh Vintage in colorways Fjord and Twig that had been purchased for the Lucy Hat. The hat was knit up and just look terrible on my head. This yarn was intended for me and by golly, I was going to get something new out of it! BTW, if you knit the Lucy Hat, you might want to add more rows to the length as I found it a bit short. Anyway, Lucy Hat was frogged and I decided a cowl that I could pull over my head like a scarf would work better than a hat. I searched for a pattern and couldn't find anything I liked. Nada. Zilch. So I designed my own, knit it up, bound it off and, as I type this, blocked it.

In case you are interested, I'll put a pattern for this at the bottom of the post.

I always soak my knitted item in warm/cool water for about 1/2 hour so the yarn 'blooms'. Pour off the water and squish out any excess.

Carefully lift your knitted item from the basin and place on an absorbent towel. Roll the towel into a sausage with the knitted item inside. Then walk on it to squeeze out the rest of the water.

I used blocking wires for this as I wanted both the top and bottom of the cowl to be even. It is, even though the photo makes it look strange. The bottom is actually a bit wider than the top and that was achieved through blocking. My guest room has an overhead fan, so I block items on the guest bed and then turn the fan on and walk away. Tomorrow it will be dry.

Here is what is ON the needles. Do you remember the Mama Bear Sweater? It was nice and cozy. But I made two major mistakes: one is that I chose the wrong size to knit and the thing was way too big and two is that I knit it out of alpaca that has a tendency to 'grow'. Do you see where this led to? It was a sweater that was too big and that grew bigger on me every time I wore it. Add to that the fact that I am losing weight and this sweater would just not work. So once again, I frogged. What you see here is the start of a Sunny Blanket. I think this is a perfect application of 18 skeins of alpaca. But I will make the Mama Bear Sweater again because I like it and now I know what size to knit and what yarn not to use.

If you want to see more OTN, please visit Judy's blog.

Here's the pattern for the Coiled Cowl:
Materials: 200 yards each of Tosh Vintage Fjord and Tosh Vintage Twig
29" US #7 circular needle
Stitch marker
row counter (optional)

Gauge: 18.0 to 20.0 sts = 4 inches

CO 150 stitches with MC, join and pm
K1, P1 for 9 rnds
*Purl 5 rnds, knit 4 rnds Break off MC and add on CC
Purl 5 rnds, knit 4 rnds Break off CC and add on MC*
Repeat between ** until you think it is long enough. Bind off using an I-cord Bind off.