Technology

My original post was lost to the black hole of technology failures, so here goes for a second writing.

This next summer FO is made from a heavy cotton yarn I inherited from my mom. It was an old frogged project of hers from maybe 5 years ago, and the yarn was tangled beyond belief. A giant, two skein wad of tangles. The untangling took nearly as long as the project, which was a fast knit. I think there are about two skeins worth here, but it might be closer to 1.5. I still have some odds and ends of this yarn left over. All told, there were two skeins to begin with, but the yarn has been on quite the journey since that time.

FO: King Tut
Pattern: Moonlight Sonata Shawl by Shelli Wescott and Marilyn Webster for Alchemy Yarns
Yarn: Knitting Fever King Tut, 100% cotton, I think about 1.5 skeins.
Needles: US 10.5 Bamboo circs
Ordinarily, cotton is not my favorite yarn to work with. This cotton seemed nicer than most I have used, buttery and smooth, and not prone to splitting. It was all those things, which made it pretty easy to de-tangle, too. Unlike some wools that felt while tangled and tugged on, the cotton was fairly painless to extract from its knotted nest into nice center-pull balls. This also meant it was nice to knit with, especially paired with such a simple pattern.
Since there are no cables, no cross stitches and no lace, the cotton was easy on the hands as I sailed through all the stockinette. The pattern is simple, perfect for showing off a nice yarn, a mass of stockinette that starts at the right point and ends at the left. When you decide you are half way done, you simply switch from increasing to decreasing. There is a four stitch garter stitch border that can be snipped with scissors to create a fringe that will stop after 4 stitches when you reach the stockinette. For this particular shawl, I chose to leave the border intact. Tune in later for the fringed version, in a linen yarn.
This pattern was co-written for Alchemy yarns by the owner of my hometown's LYS, Knitterly. Alchemy is a local yarn brand in my home county, so the pattern and company have a nice nostalgic feel for me. Incidentally, the LYS owner is also my 3rd grade softball coach, my one and only attempt at a sport involving hand eye coordination. I played third base, and I think the ball only came to me once, and I remember being shocked to see the ball had ended up somehow in my mitt.

Fairy tales are alive in Bavaria's Neuschwanstein Castle