Possessed to Knit

Herbal Scarf Completed

Here is the scarf I knitted for my friend, Karyn, who does the Herbal Highway podcast each week.  She received a skein of yarn from one of her students and I gladly offered to knit it up for her.

The 2-ply skein was a little over 4 oz, about 200 yards and very evenly spun.  She thought it was handspun, but I think it was mill processed from some home-raised sheep.  At any rate, it has a wonderful sheepy scent and is fairly soft.

To get the longest scarf possible, I used my size 10 Addi Lace Click needles and cast on 27 sts.  I started with a few rows of garter stitch and kept 2 stitches of garter stitch on the edges.  I selected this lace pattern from my Japanese 1000 Knitting Patterns book.  I like this pattern because it is the same up and down, so I did not have to knit two pieces then graft them together in the middle.  The scarf is about 7" wide by 48" long after blocking and I had just a few inches of yarn left. 

Thank you to Karyn for her educational podcast and for this lovely knitting challenge.  

Fibery Birthday Surprise

My Ravelry BFF, Laura, helped me to celebrate my 45th birthday with these lovely gifts.  The yarn is 70% mink and 30% cashmere from Great Northern Yarns.  I have taken lots of spinning classes and spun almost every exotic fiber, or so I thought.  I have never seen mink fiber.  These healthy, stress-free minks are sheared once a year.  Their fiber is blended with Mongolian cashmere to create this luxurious yarn, the softest yarn I have ever held.  It is Double Knitting weight with 230 yards per skein.  I'm thinking of knitting a beaded cowl, though I have not decided for certain. 

The book is Knitting Patterns Book 250 and is filled with beautiful Japanese stitch patterns.  I own several German stitch pattern books and these Japanese patterns are even prettier and more intricate than I could have ever imagined.  Laura included some translation pages given to her by her LYS owner for some of the more complicated stitch patterns.  Thank you to Laura for her thoughtful birthday gifts!

In other news, we received about 18" of snow over the weekend.  I did get to do some knitting and spinning, but a lot of our time was spent shoveling in the hope that we will eventually receive our mail and our newspapers at some point in the near future.  Here is Caitlin on an adventure in the yard.  She & Colin love the snow, even if it is taller than they are.