So, I have a pair of socks on the needle and the Prayer Shawl to work on as well. But. This yarn has been calling my name for days. That ball of yarn is a half pound of 2-ply, hand-spun, mystery wool. I bought a full pound of the fiber from a little shop in Sherman that didn’t stay in business very long. Nice owner, great lady with a house full of gorgeous children, but being out of the house so much during the week put quite a strain on the whole family.
I’ve done well finishing up several active projects over the past few months and hadn’t intended to start another one, but sometimes I have trouble turning off the inspiration when it hits and focusing on the project at hand. So, I gave in and grabbed more hand-spun yarn to play with. This will be a long term project for cooler weather. I have a heavy knitted throw when I need something really warm, but I’ve been wanting something lighter weight.
I have another 8 oz of this in another skein that I can wind off when needed. This is between fingering and sport weight and I’ve had my eye on it for a lap throw for awhile. It’s not a super soft wool by any means, but it spun up well and very quickly, obviously a long-wool breed of some kind. I filled two jumbo bobbins with singles and then plied them together onto two more jumbo bobbins for two 8 oz skeins.
I looked through my pattern books hoping for inspiration but didn’t see anything that I thought would work. This is a variegated, marl type yarn and doesn’t need a complicated, busy stitch pattern so I opted for a plain, diagonal garter stitch, like the washcloths I’ve been making. I’ve got three stitches on the edges before the YO increases instead of two stitches and I like the way it’s working up so far. I’ll keep going with increases at the beginning of each row until it’s wide enough to suit me then I’ll increase on one side and decrease on the other side for a rectangle.
I’ll knit it slightly oversized and full it a bit when I wash the finished throw. I don’t believe that this is super wash wool and it should full just fine. I don’t want it to shrink up a lot, just firm it up and let it draw in a bit. The hand wash cycle on my washer should do just fine for the fulling.
It’s HOT outside again today, 102° at 4:45 pm. Brad made a trip to town to pick up the mail, we had a couple of packages…one of which is our monthly coffee subscription. We’ve been running a bit low on coffee. At one point we had a surplus because we were getting three bags per month and drinking a full pot of coffee most days. Then we cut back to half a pot and the coffee kept filling up the shelf in the cupboard, so we went to three bags every other month for a couple of months and have gone through all of the coffee that was stockpiled. Now we are getting two 12 oz bags a month and that seems to be our magic number. We can have a full pot once in a while but most days we just brew half a pot which gives us both a large mug in the mornings.
Today is the Memorial of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. May God bless you all through the intercession of Our Lady.
Rural Texas Knitter 