Mud Season Cowl: Pattern Notes

Wow. So you guys are still out there reading. How cool is that? I would love to be one of those people who blogs for themselves, but honestly I really like hearing from all of you and I definitely think of you when I write. It would be weird to write without thinking of my internet friends, so I'm glad to see you're still here and even a little chatty. These aren't my usual pattern notes, but given the fact that I made the yarn and the "pattern" there isn't really much point to reviewing them, is there? We'll just do this all stream-of-conscious-like.

I finished the Mud Season Cowl in May. It's hard to say exactly when I started it because I spun the yarn first and I think it's fair to say that counts as part of the full project time. Prior to Griffin's appearance I was a happy member of the Spunky Eclectic Fiber Club - something I highly recommend. My hope was that I would spin up the 4 or so ounces of mystery fiber that Amy sent every month and get back into a spinning groove. I have lived with myself for too long not to know that was a doomed proposition from the start, but I decided that if I aspired to a 4 ounce a month goal I would at least spin 4 ounces a quarter, and for the most part I managed to do that (more Spunky on the bobbin right now, in fact). I bowed out of the club when I was 8 months pregnant, knowing that I would soon become in danger of my fiber stash equaling my yarn stash (and we cannot have that), but maybe if I'm a good girl and spin through what I have left I will allow myself a little fiber club treat.

This is the photo that shows the colors best. They are pretty hard to wrap your eyes around for some reason - hard to take in all at once. But oh, so pretty.

Okay, so what I think I was saying at the beginning of that paragraph was that I started spinning the Mud Season merino last fall. There was a short period of time when the stars aligned (read: the little dude could not crawl or roll far) and I did a bit of spinning. Then the skies went back to their former state of disarray and my spinning got put away until April. In April two things happened. The first was that I read The Intentional Spinner and got completely inspired to spin again, and the second was that I happened upon Connie's post about her knitting group's cowl swap, and I was determined that my little knitting circle do a swap as well.

The roving pre-spin, pre-knit.Here's where I have to make a confession. The cowl you see was originally intended for my cowl pal. But when I finished it there were two problems. The first was that it was very chunky, and I wasn't sure it would be her thing (that's the altruistic reason) and the second was that it was my first handspun handknit adult garment of any sort and I just could not bear to part with it (that's the not so altruistic part). And honestly, I love it - the colors, the chunkiness, it is just so me. I don't think I could wear the cowl in good conscience if I hadn't written this, but I feel certain that my cowl pal will understand if it is indeed a cowl that she would have worn and loved, and that if it isn't she will breathe a happy sigh of relief to have dodged the cowl bullet. (She's getting a lovely merino-cashmere blend cowl, so there isn't too much to be sad about, either way!)

The singles wound into a center-pull ball ready to be plied.There is a rather long back-story on the spinning portion of the cowl, but the short version is that I somehow managed to spin the singles in opposite directions and then had to figure out how to make them work together. As it turns out, the answer was not rocket science, though it did escape my poor little brain. All it took was winding each into a center-pull ball and then plying them on the wheel from there. It worked really well, and the difference in ply direction does not make a difference in the appearance of the knitting. I even have a bit of advice for those who employ this method, now that I have gained a wee bit of experience in the area. Leave the singles on the bobbins for a bit before you wind them into center-pull balls. And by "a bit" I mean about a week. This allows the singles to "set" which keeps them from becoming an unholy tangled mess when you go to ply them. Neat, huh?

Other than that the stats on the cowl are pretty simple. It's 100% merino, two-ply, Andean plied, knit in a traditional feather and fan pattern on US10 needles. The colors escape proper photography - you will just have to trust me when I say they are beautiful. It's rustic and organic looking and I had a wonderful time making it. There are few things as satisfying as spinning and then knitting something for yourself. I'm guessing that wearing it is going to be just as good, though.