Inspira Cowl

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.

Guernsey Wrap

I was updating projects in Ravelry and boy howdy I knit with a lot of grey. In fact, I originally started this scarf in grey using KnitPicks Simply Alpaca but the halo on the fiber was fighting a little too much with the textured panels. On attempt no. 2 I went with a bright blue (a little reminiscent of Iroshizuku Kon Peki, no?) instead, which proved a most solid decision. I decided to make a little collage of the FO but the effect was subtler than anticipated - it almost looks like a single picture, if not for that bottom row of ribbing. Ah well, it’s a feature, not a bug. ;)

Pattern: Guernsey Wrap by Brooklyn Tweed; made in KnitPicks Provincial Tweed

New skills: Sewn bind off

Lessons: Sewn bind offs are superbly useful! I have a hard time making bind offs match the stretchiness of my cast-on edge (always either too tight or too stretchy) and this technique provided a uniform appearance & stretch.

Provincial Tweed seemed to be a little thinner than a true worsted weight, resulting in a fabric that was a little looser than anticipated, but the softness is lovely.

What I'd do differently: I'd probably use a colorway that's a little simpler (without the tweed neps or subtle marling) to really let the textures shine.