Foxy Duo Cowl from Criativity - Day 4

From Stuff to Fluff...

Stuff is interesting to knit with—the always-changing nature of the yarn means that sometimes you are knitting with one nubby strand, then stitching four shimmery ones the next segment.  While this is straight-up stockinette, a place where I usually default to Continental style stitching for speed, I found I couldn't do it here.  There is one shift in needle sizes—effortless with interchangeable needles but not much of a big deal on traditional circs, either—but that’s about it.  The work may be repetitive, but not boring.  It’s not as if I was facing endless inches of stockinette; there’s less than a foot of it for this cowl.

Once you’ve used up your Stuff (the pattern calls for a specific inch width but I chose to just keep going a few extra rows until I used up all the yarn), it’s time to return to the funny, furry Plume.  And that was certainly entertaining.  The smaller the ball got, the more unruly it became.  The sandwich bag containment tactic worked, but by the end I kept laughing as it twitched and unwound itself as if alive.  With only a handful of garter stitch rows to go, I found my tolerance for Plume’s antics had risen.  It ended up more amusing than frustrating, a curtain bow from a drama queen if you will.

What will all this look like finished and on my shoulders?  Next post you’ll get to see…

Foxy Duo Cowl from Criativity - Day 3

Lashing out...

Stuff—this project’s other fiber—is aptly named.  It’s as if your terribly artsy friend raided your yarn stash and tied lots of “stuff” together.  Only this artsy friend has excellent taste in texture and color.  If I romped through my yarn stash and strung a whole bunch of yarn fragments together, you can bet it wouldn’t come out this pretty.  Think colorblind bird’s nest.

Yes, there are knots.  If this piece were reversible, that would be an issue.  But since the Foxy Duo Cowl has a right side and a wrong side, it’s not such a challenge.  I’ll still weave the ends in, however, because I think if you wanted to double loop this loveliness around your neck, a bit of the wrong side might show.

DestiKNITters are by now familiar with my rants on top-down shawls.  A close second in the ranks of Allie rants, however, is eyelash yarn.  And in this particular instance, it’s very long eyelash yarn.  Each “lash” is over an inch long, which takes a lot of coping, picking, and arranging.  I’m really glad Stuff is a collection of yarns, because if I were doing the entire non-Plume portion of this cowl in eyelash, things would get ugly.  I’m already whining about it regularly, measuring how many inches of eyelash torture I have left each time that fiber comes along.

I did notice one set of directions advised eyelash-averse knitters to simply trim the lashes off after knitting.  I have to say, I’m considering it—but it’s the knitting of eyelash yarn that I dislike, not the appearance of it.

Still, in the adventurous spirit of DestiKNITions, I’m withholding judgement until the piece is finished.  If a week or so from now you feel the earth shift, it may be because I found an eyelash project that doesn’t make me twitch.  

Hey, it could happen.

Foxy Duo Cowl from Criativity - Day 2

Knitting with Plume is a bit of a contradiction.

The stuff feels absolutely wonderful.  Seriously, it's the knitting equivalent of petting kittens.  You have to stop yourself from saying "ahh" all time.  I don't understand how it feels cool to the touch--the stuff is room temperature--but I'd wager you would brush it up against the back of your neck in a heatwave and feel a breeze.  Bathrobes should be made of this.  Slippers should be made of this.  Hospital waiting rooms should be made of this.  It's tactile calm.

Knitting with it kind of sucks all the calm right out of it, however.  The control freak in me wants the fur to lay perfectly within the stitches, not get all caught up in tangles.  I keep picking at it, trying to make it lie down the way I want it to, fussing with the strands when I should just be enjoying the smooth, silky feeling.  I feel more like I'm making a puppet than I'm knitting a cowl.

I'm not puppeteering.  I realize this is just the trim, and that its companion fiber will take this from stuffed animal to accessory.  The colors really are stunning, and I have no doubt that this will be one of those accessories where people will continually come up and ask to touch it.  At a booksigning or bookfair, this will be superb wearable marketing--a real conversation starter.

I'm following Prism's advice and tucking my wandering ball of Plume--so prone to unwinding--into a ziplock sandwich bag with just a tiny opening for the working thread.  Sure, it looks like I've just caught a pretty teal kitten, but at least I've got my fiber under control.

Stay tuned for the next segment, when I add the continually changing "Stuff" to the project.

Foxy Duo Cowl from Criativity - Day 1

Getting Foxy...

I’ll admit, the whole project smacked of “novelty yarn” to me at first.  The whole “eyelash yarn fun fur” thing was never anything that came even close to catching my attention.  And it has shiny stuff in it—I don’t do sparkle, not even in nail polish.  Honestly, I was trepidatious when I started the Foxy Duo Cowl.

But adventure is the whole point of DestiKNITions, and I have been pleasantly surprised by projects far more than I have been disappointed, so I mustered my optimism and opened my cowl kit kindly supplied by Prism Yarns.

Now, everyone agrees Prism makes a gorgeous product.  Art yarn.  Eye catching fibers. And these two are no exceptions.  The Plume is mysteriously, obsessively lovely to touch—really, you can’t stop stroking it.  How does it feel so cool to the touch and so soft at the same time?  You have to fight the urge to hold it up to your cheek and sigh.

And Stuff?  It’s a collection of all different kinds of yarns—some fuzzy, some shiny, some thin, some thick.  It reminds me of the yarn I used to make the Feza vest.  I’m sure I’ll find the constant change of texture amusing in the endless rounds of stockinette this cowl requires.

But first, I have to get it out of hanks—and in this case, that takes some doing.  I brought it to my knitting group, because I figured it would either be a lot of fun or a load of hassle.  The Stuff label should have been my first clue:  it says “Stuff must be wound while under tension.  Place skein onto a swift or a friend’s outstretched arms.”

That’s exactly they way it went.  I managed about three feet on my own, then had to enlist the help of a friend to hold it while I patiently, carefully wound.  Hey, Allie, why don’t you try actually reading the directions next time?  Then again, who knew yarn came with directions?  Yarn often comes with patterns, but that’s not the same thing.

Once I brought in backup—in the form of my friend Nancy’s helpfully outstretched arms—the hank of Stuff wound itself up very nicely, and has behaved cooperatively so far.  The Plume is another story—I kid you not, the thing reminds me of a Star Trek Tribble.   And it does not want to stay wound. Every once in a while I think I catch it moving out of the corner of my eye.

Stay tuned…this could get really interesting.