Twisp of Fate

Methow Valley Spinners & Weavers annual show and sale was the weekend before Thanksgiving.  I sometimes put some handspun yarn in the sale, but hadn’t put any knitted items in for a while.  Since the focus is on spinning and weaving, our “rule” is that knitted items (or crocheted, or other crafts) have to be done with handspun yarn.

So I went to work on some of my Mosaic Mojo Hats (pattern available on Ravelry.com).  I wound up finishing six of them, and three sold at the guild sale.  The others went to Winthrop Gallery for the holiday gift show.

BFL roving in blue tones, polwarth/silk roving in greens, both dyed by Judith MacKenzie

Brownish yarn created at spinning camp with Judith Feb 2017 from grab-bag of different colors & fibers, plus blue BFL

Another hat with same fibers

Yet another hat with same fibers

Green polwarth/silk and some natural gray handspun from years ago

Reddish polwarth/silk roving I dyed at spinning camp Feb 2016, plus some leftover purple handspun from Taylored Fibers roving

I also had some handspun polwarth/silk from three rovings I bought a few years ago.  They were dyed by Abstract Fiber in Portland, Oregon.  Each 4-oz roving was a different colorway, but they went well together, so I spun singles from each one and then made a 3-ply yarn.  It came out more or less a worsted weight and I didn’t have enough to knit a garment, so it was just sitting there for a while deciding what it wanted to be.

I wound up knitting two cowls based on my Squirrel Cowl pattern (written for fingering weight yarn).  This is a sequence knitting project and uses a multiple of 12 + 1 stitches.   I used a size 9 needle and 228 + 1 sts and it came out a good length for wrapping around twice.  One went into the guild sale and then on to the Winthrop Gallery, and the other I am keeping for me!

Abstract Fiber cowl #1

Abstract Fiber cowl #2

The second one (the one I am keeping) is actually a little different.  I ran out of one of the singles but had more of another one, so I had a small skein of 3-ply with 2 singles of the latter and none of the former.  It was more blue.  I started the cowl with that color, then blended into the main yarn which had all three colors.

By the way, I think Abstract Fiber will be one of the vendors again at the 2018 Madrona Fiber Arts Winter Retreat in Tacoma, WA  (Feb 15-18, 2018).  She really does beautiful work.