Those Brown Eyes Dreaming

It's been a super busy week, not much time for knitting. My inability to focus on charts or thinking in the evenings has hampered my ability to work on Liberty, though I did knit a couple of inches yesterday.

I'm starting to think about quick holiday gifts, especially those that require less concentration than Liberty, and I started the Crofter's Cowl (Rav link) by Gudrun Johnston. I'm using Blue Sky Alpaca's worsted weight organic cotton, which is a new yarn for me. I'm not sure that this is a great substitute for the recommended Malabrigo, but the person I have in mind for this can't wear wool and maybe not some other animal fibers. Let's face it--nobody's going to wear an itchy cowl!!! There is a chart, but it's super easy to follow without a lot of attention--the lace pattern looks a lot more complicated than it is to work. The tricky part is that the cowl is worked in two halfs, and then grafted together. I might not do that for this cowl, because I'm worried that the graft will be super apparent, and not just because of my poor skills. Cotton doesn't block out like wool, so my theory is that if the tension of the graft isn't perfect, then it will stick out like a sore thumb. We'll see, though--I might change my mind once I'm closer to the critical half-way decision point.

In other knitting news, the deadline to finish the Wino Juno for the Loopy Ewe KALs came and went, and I hardly even noticed--I've worked on it a little, here and there, but after ripping out 15 inches that project needed a little break. Juno might make a good holiday gift, so I probably should start taking it to knit night again, or start picking it up when I'm too tired to follow a chart! Although that might be why I had to rip out those 15 inches in the first place . . .

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"Those Brown Eyes Dreaming": Wilco, I am Trying to Break Your Heart