Kumbi Cowl

I pulled some mill ends out of a sale bin the last time I was in Eugene, and my puzzle for the past few months has been figuring out what to make with them. I started assembling pictures of patterns on pinterest for inspiration…

…but nothing was translating that well on the needles.

Then R. went to Washington DC for a month-long fellowship at Dumbarton Oaks, which is like an estate+library+garden+archives. I visited for the weekend. My favorite part of the gardens was this big chicken-wire cloud installed over a reflecting pool with thousands of little crystals hanging in the wire. It looked like someone had hand-twisted them in there. I wanted to know more.

There were also a bunch of Latin American art and textiles, which is what R. studies. I must’ve absorbed some because when I got back I had an easier time playing with pattern. I drew up a design for this thick cozy cowl:

I’m calling it Kumbi Cowl, which R. suggested because kumbi (usually spelled with a “c”) refers to precious woven cloth in Quechua (before we got to kumbi I had to veto some really long Quechua words that no one would be able to spell or remember). It’s knit in the round so that all of the stranded stuff is hidden inside the cowl. This also makes it extra squishy and warm. I did a provisional cast-on and grafted the ends together so that the seam is barely noticeable.

There was a snowstorm today and my coworker was so kind as to model Kumbi in action. Here’s the link to the ravelry project page. I haven’t decided yet whether I’ll write up the pattern….

Teddywidder

The Teddywidder pattern is for sale now in ravelry!

I learned so much from the test-knitters. They did a phenomenal job. The pattern includes written instructions and a schematic and all measurements are given in both cm and in.

My next pattern is drying over the air vent. More on that soon…

676 yards…

…of alpaca/wool handspun. I’m not sure what to turn it into. Right now it’s saying “rectangular rustic wrap” to me.

The yarn is what became of all the gray roving in this picture…

In searching pinterest for rustic-wrap inspiration I stumbled upon this. I can’t drop the photo here because of the knitter’s copyright settings on flickr, but you SHOuLD click on the link. Is it not the most beautiful blanket? I’m blown away. She hand-carded all of that wool.

I spun most of this on Christine’s wheel because mine is kind of on the fritz. It’s a Kromski Minstrel and I just can’t say enough good things about it. It’s got me saving my money.

Scorpion Punch

R. loves mezcal, which I’d describe as tequila-plus-campfire…very smoky. So when he saw this bottle of Scorpion Mezcal on super sale at the local liquor store ($50 $18 ) he bought it, not knowing anything about the brand other than it featured a scorpion at the bottom instead of the usual worm (see him up there?). At the register the salesperson told him that that bottle had been on the shelf so long the employees had a betting pool on who would finally buy it and when. They asked to take R’s picture so they could show the others

R. might like sipping this stuff straight, but I’m not there yet. So we googled “mezcal cocktails” and found something to try. We took a house trip to the liquor store again and then started measuring and pouring into our makeshift cocktail mixer. Here’s Aj pouring in the agave syrup…

What’s in this stuff? Besides mezcal there’s Averna, agave, ginger beer, lemon juice, and grapefruit juice. The recipe we found was for a whole punchbowl’s worth of drink, so we cut it into fifths. 

I liked it a lot. But it’s really strong. The carbonation meant it needed to be consumed in one sitting, which we managed as a group of three but just barely. We made it again this past week and just put everything into the mason jar except the ginger beer so that it’s like a readymade mix in the fridge. That way it can be spread out over a few days…just mix it up with some ginger beer as you go. 

The test-knitters are test-knitting!

Opening ravelry and seeing new photos of their WIPs is soooo exciting!! I am very very thankful for this group of test-knitters. They’ve been oh so patient in reviewing my first pattern with graded sizes. They’re also a worldly bunch…Germany, Argentina, UK, France, Finland, and California. We seem to be assembling an impressive array of teddywidders in naturals and neutrals.

It’s nerve-wracking to put your pattern out there for test-knitting. You have these what-if-they-all-hate-it worries, and of course pattern mistakes are found that when you look at them, you can’t believe you made.  But it’s also exciting. I’m trying to develop a new pattern now; something stranded and colorful.

More Nemo

We ventured out this morning at about 8am and ours were the only footprints in any direction. Except for a couple of snowplows and a lady walking her greyhound it was very quiet. The roads were empty, every business was closed, and the sidewalks and front steps were covered in pristine drifts.

Already as I type this I can see a few more people out walking and the neighbor kids are busily tunneling away at a fort. It’s supposed to snow a few hours longer, and once it quits I expect a lot more shoveling, plowing, and driving. But I think we’ll enjoy one more day lounging around in pajamas…hopefully the landlord comes tomorrow to plow our driveway since there are some waist high drifts between my car and the road.

Yesterday we watched a bootleg copy of Django Unchained, the remainder of season 1 of The Hour (so good), and I spun up a couple hundred yards of the alpaca/wool that I’ve had sitting around for a while.

Snowed in for Nemo

We have a roommate for a couple of months. He’s great. His wife (my former coworker) moved and he’s just taking closing up shop in Boston before joining her in spring. She has snow-day-envy and asked for some pics of Nemo today. He texted her something along the lines of this…

I guess she was hoping for something more like this…

I used a 3-second exposure and ended up creating these kind of dream/ghost images. It’s supposed to keep on snowing through the night so we might wake up to a whole lot more of it.

Sam walked with us for a half block, then cut through the neighbors’ yards and sprinted home. He was waiting on the porch for us when we got back around. He’d much prefer spending snow day as shown below…