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Sampling


First project! I made this lovely (link goes to Ravelry) Sunset Mesa Cowl in a day, and I love how it turned out. I will happily embrace any excuse to use Spincycle yarn and I feel like this was a perfect application, with the sunset theme. It even faded to almost the same exact blue of the Malabrigo Rios background by the end! This was my first time knitting one of Jennifer Berg's patterns, but having discovered her/them, I have several more in my mental queue. 


Most of my knitting this month was a return to my knitting roots - shop samples, for Kandy. First I made this (link goes to Ravelry) Elemental Raglan with DanDoh DK Cotton. It was an interesting garment to make, although not necessarily something I'd want for myself. I was pleasantly surprised by the yarn, which initially struck me as likely to split, but it didn't (much).

Next was (another Rav link) a Woven Shadows in DanDoh Linen. The sideways construction of the garment and the chainette construction of the yarn made for an interesting process, and I wore it the day I took pictures and got a lot of compliments - I might end up making one for myself, although maybe in a different color.

And finally, (last Rav link) an Elemental Cowl, also with DanDoh DK Cotton. In the interest of full disclosure, I worked the first five inches of it as instructed (all purled, as it's done from the right side), spotted an error (my own, not the pattern's) that required pulling the whole thing out, and took that as a permissive sign for knitting the whole thing inside out. The end effect is the same, and given the amount of obstacles I had to knitting time the past week, it also helped me finish it more quickly. Any time I take the efficient route, I'm always reminded of how, not once but twice, I had my knitting taken from me by well-intentioned elderly Russian women on the B train who insisted that I was knitting "like a peasant" and wouldn't give it back until I snapped that I was a peasant (it was piecework that I was being paid for, so the definition was correct). But even when it's for myself, I don't bother trying to look elegant in-process - I'd rather look fabulous wearing it, finished!

Right now I've pulled my Brise cardigan out of hibernation with a desire to finish it in June - and I also need to collect the yarn I've earned by sample knitting!

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