My mom and I live in crafting symbiosis: she buys yarn, and I turn it into cozy things for her.* After their last trip to the Maritimes, she brought back a haul of treasures from The Mariner’s Daughter in Lunenburg, NS. Still working through the stash (it was, uh, formidable) until I can stow away on their next trip and visit in person...
*She's also well-versed in the care and keeping of handknits, so there's no anxiety about accidental tumble drying. (I feel like every knitter has a horror story about one of their FOs getting dryerized.)
Pattern: Inspira Cowl by Graphica; made in Noro Silk Garden
Lessons: My new fave, the sewn bind off, isn't well-suited to Noro yarn. I ended up with some splitting and had to spit graft the sewn end a couple times before I was done.
Instead of knitting 2-handed like I usually do for colorwork, on this project I knit full English and just swapped which color I was throwing. The finished fabric seemed to have more even tension between the 2 colors, and it (counter-intuitively) felt faster then 2-handed knitting. I still feel like I should just suck it up and learn to knit Continental for real.
What I'd do differently: Maybe plan my color transitions a little more? I feel like I got lucky this time.