On the needles, blue and pink…

I’ve been working on a design project with this lovely yarn from Moss Fibers. The colorway is The Maine Event, and this was in our goodie bags at Knit Maine. It’s really nice; the color is evocative of our event, and the yarn is wonderful to work with.

After several false starts, I knew needed to simplify; there were too many ideas trying to fit into this single skein project. I started again, and frogged it again after I realized there was a more elegant way to arrange my chosen stitch pattern. It now flows seamlessly, and that makes me happy.

This is a 2 part cowl, like Cosette, with a round cowl and then a bandana cowl at the bottom. Now that I’ve finished the project, I’ve decided that it’s not as wide as I want it to be at the bottom. Because it’s a one skein project, if I want it to be bigger at the bottom, it will have to be shorter at the top. Does that mean I’m going to frog the whole thing? Nope. It may become a size option; we’ll see.

Now I’m knitting option number 2. A little wider to begin, and on we go. This yarn is BosSi from Fierce Fibers in the Plum Gradient colorway. She’s not dyeing on this base any more (50/50 baby yak and silk), but it’s very lovely, and was one only two options in my limited stash when I suddenly wanted a gradient. Beautiful!

Ummmm, I just realized that I haven’t knit with this particular fiber base before. I didn’t knit and block a swatch before beginning, and I can’t just stop in the middle of the gradient and make a swatch. I hope that doesn’t turn around to bite me later! I mean, I guess I could knit a small swatch from the other end of the ball, but why take the blocking chicken fun out of the game?

Knit faster, find out sooner…