Spinalcat's Crafty Adventures

The eyelet edging on this cowl made me think of castle towers. A merlon is the solid portion between the slits cut away for the passage of arrows. Rowan Lima is an exquisitely soft alpaca blend. Its i-cord-like construction looks surprisingly wonderful in cables. This cowl is buttery soft, warm despite its eyelet stitch pattern, and has terrific drape. The pattern has instructions for 2 different cowl lengths, and it can also be worn folded over. Ravelry pattern page here . Pattern is $4.50 through my Ravelry pattern store. No Ravelry membership required, payments are processed through Paypal.

This is Design 11 from Noro Catwalk 2 by Jenny Watson. I was excited to finally get to try Kureyon Sock, and I liked working with it. For this project, I made no attempt to control the striping. I grabbed skeins at random as they ran out and always pulled from the center. As for modifications, I made the sleeves about an inch shorter than called for. They are still quite long. I knit the collar in one piece. I have a strict rule about no seams at the back of the neck. Maybe it is not so bad for people with long hair, but I won't tolerate it. When I got to the halfway point I reversed the short row shaping and kept going to the end. If I were doing it again, I would probably work the sleeves in the round and perhaps narrow the upper arm a little. I think this sweater is going to be perfect for throwing on in the evenings when it gets cold.

I love the shine on this yarn! From l to r: Black Rose, Vampire Girl, Dagon, Nanobot, and Jellies 80% superwash Merino wool, 20% rayon from bamboo 100g, approx. 390yds In the shop now.

Clockwise from top: Miss Babs BFL roving in Mariana Trench, Blue Moon Fiber Arts Twisted in ST-2, A Verb for Keeping Warm yak/silk roving in No. 9, Creatively Dyed Steele yarn in Cumin, Abstract Fiber Targhee roving in Twilight, and Lisa Sousa Merino/tencel/firestar batts in Berry Fizz. Normally I have a rule to buy only fiber at Stitches. I only made it through 1.5 of the 7 things I bought last year, but I found some really nice fiber I talked myself into buying. Last year I missed out on Lisa Sousa's more colorful batt offerings. I also decided that I really need a hot pink sweater. Blue Moon is brilliant for putting up the Twisted in such huge skeins. It's a lot easier to impulse-buy sweater quantities when it's only 3 skeins! I have a lot of sock and lace stash (plus fiber that will probably become more sock and lace stash), but almost no sweater stash. Despite the sock yarn stash situation (which I know is really mild compared to some of the more notoriou...

Beginning this month, the Knitspiration Guild of Silicon Valley is going to be doing a series on different kinds of colorwork. I'm kicking it off this Thursday with a session on double knitting. Guild meetings take place the second Thursday of the month at the Yarndogs annex at 7pm and are free to attend. For this lesson, you will need 2 colors of worsted weight yarn (I used Rowan All-Seasons Cotton) and size US 6 needles. This is really a fun technique. The light bulb motif comes from the guild t-shirts we stenciled last year.

Just need to weave in ends and do a final blocking! I got this pin from Gita Maria at Stitches West last weekend.

Ziva is so shiny!