Reclaiming a Sweater

I've just realized I probably should have taken a picture of the sweater when it was whole. Oh well. It was from the Goodwill, and while a designer sweater, was made of tomato-red mohair, so there was no way I could resist. It was very bulky, and probably could have fit me, but as we all know, a chunky sweater on a fat girl is a recipe for disaster. I thought the yarn was a Lamb's Pride- like wool/mohair single, but in reality it's two strands of fingering weight brushed mohair (with some wool as a stabilizer). So the yarn has been ripped and caked, and will probably become some kind of entrelac, because that's what it's telling me.*

Also, I've finished the rainbow cowl. It's quite nice; I've made it into a moebius cowl, because that kind of design element is so easy and yet quite classy.

Each color in the yarn somehow lasted exactly the width of the project, so there isn't an abrupt change mid-pattern. Also, the project had exactly enough yarn. Seriously, the blue repeat ended, I bound off, and sewed the seam, and I now have about a foot left of handspun. If I kept a project journal (which I undoubtedly never will, because I know how I start things and don't finish them**), I'd put it in there with a note on how surprisingly successful this project was, considering I was just trying to use up the mohair locks. Now, I think it'll go into my fancy-additives for when I finally spin an art yarn.

*The yarn is, of course, not actually speaking to me. ...Just wanted to clear that up.

** As evidenced, of course, by my long blogging absences.

I've been spinning some of Krista's roving in the Poison colorway. It's maybe not what I'd describe as my first color choice, but there's something about it that really just works. Shades of warm and cool purple, with some very dark and very light areas. I'm adding irridescent Angelina as I go. The Angelina comes out kind of hairy if you're not careful; I'm sure blending it with a drum carder would have a different result, but I'm not about to mess up the color definition in this roving by blending it away. This is undoubtedly going to be a DK-weight 2-ply in the style of Sock Hop Yarn.

I've been knitting a bit as well. Mostly, I've been working on a cowl made from the rainbow mohair locks my dad got me in Ashland, OR. They were hanging around, and while I liked the colors, seemed way more effort that they were worth. They nearly were. I tried to fit all 4 oz. on my Bosworth (my arm got tired, let me tell you! 5oz. is heavy when you've been holding it aloft for hours), but had to spin the last bit separately. When I Andean-plyed it, the colors didn't line up exactly, but I'm pretty mellow when it comes to this yarn. The pattern I'm using is the Seafoam pattern from Barbara Walker's Second Treasury of Knitting. It's really, really simple, but looks fabulous, and is perfect to display my lace mohair yarn. We'll see whether or not 4oz. was enough to make the dimensions I want, or if I have to rip it all out to make it narrower.

Yarn: Handspun from kid mohair locks.

Weight: 4 oz. 19 WPI. Dunno what yardage.