Last week I sent AwesomeE a picture of a finished cowl, and she responded that I must have finished it really quickly. At which point I realized I’ve been working on it accidentally in secret. It’s a fairly basic pattern, so it’s been my travel project for taking the train in to Berlin, or going to restaurants. And of course we haven’t been doing any of that recently. I finished it last weekend when I was really tired and couldn’t concentrate on anything more complicated than garter and an easy yo – k2tog mesh pattern.
So here it is, my stealth cowl:
It’s a skein of Undercover Otter Squirm I picked up summer before last in Amsterdam. The pictures don’t do the extreme neon of the green or blue justice – it’s really bright! Of course, I’ve finished a warm winter cowl just in time for spring, but it should be fun to wear on grey days next winter and Mother Nature could always have a last surprise in store for us. Pattern is “CoPilot” and is available for free.
I love the Undercover Otter colors, but I am enjoying working with the singles on my Fireworks shawl more than I’ve liked working with the Squirm base on either of the two projects I’ve used it for. I find it a little too splitty – it’s not quite as tightly spun as I’d like for a sock yarn (1st project), and I try not to use nylon blends for non-sock projects, but I didn’t want to do socks with this skein. I bought it very much for me, and I’ve discovered that I like colorful, but not intensely bright, socks for myself.
All in all – this is why I went for the “Mighty Merino” base for my Clan of Igor subscription. It’s 100% superwash merino 4ply – more versatile than singles but still a fingering.
I’ve also been working on plying up singles of the “Pomegrate” colorway from John Arbon Textiles.
Once I get a first skein finished, I can finally start knitting the long planned scarf with it and the light multi-colored/creamy yarn I worked on for so much of 2019. In parallel, I’ll have to keep spinning up singles for plying more of the dark red as well. Since my current knit projects are more complex and require continually referring to the directions right now (my lace top & my brioche shawl), it’s been handy to have some plying at hand for when I can’t concentrate on those, such as work conference calls. My lack of simple knitting projects also ensures that I do spend some time on plying.
Are you looking to start your next project but don’t feel like you can afford to buy new patterns right now? Check out my pattern giveaway.
I hope everybody is staying home as much as they can and staying safe.