Holy Moley guys.
I just knit a 120 dollar skein of yarn.
And I liked it way too much.
About a half a year ago my local yarn shop gave me a skein of Qiviut yarn and asked me to design a 1 skein project out of it, and I was thoroughly and completely intimidated by it. That little teeny tiny skein, 28 grams, about 200 yards, oh so soft and very very very very very very special. It was almost impossible to decide what to make out of it. I think I got specialaphobia, you know when something is sooo special, it's hard to decide to actually use the darn thing? I decided that the skein could maybe just live in it's little plastic bag for a while and I would make some design decisions. So I closed it up tight in a ziploc, and a knitting bag with a zipper, up off the ground, away from the cat and the dogs, but close enough to grab in case of fire.
I had also been sent home with some nice green beads, my favorite color green toho beads #996 the same color that I had used for the Sivia Shawl. And so I decided to focus on the beads and how I could effectively use them.. get this.. sparingly. Yup! Sparingly, usually I allow myself way too many liberties with beads and then there are patterns created with upwards of 500. But this cute little cowl only has 66(78) beads, and they are only placed in the first 20 odd rows of the pattern.
I also wanted a stitch pattern that was simple with some movement on the bottom edge, a bit of lace and texture but then a section that was more plain to let the yarn just be it's glorious self. The finished deisgn has patterning on every round for the first little bit and then it tapers off into a vertical eyelet pattern with bands of stockinette in between.
With my plan of action firmly in place I felt like maybe I could possibly wind the skein, it was so soft and amazing, it spoke to me in soothing whispers and my fears were allayed far too quickly. The first cowl was knit up in a flash, 4 days tops, it goes especially fast when the bottom patterning is done and you are working the vertical eyelet. It was over before it even seemed to have begun, all that build up and then it was done!
Emergency measures were taken.
That other single special skein of 100% cashmere that I had been saving up became a second larger cowl with smokey quartz beads and a slightly deeper eyelet section. Good thing I had a previous case of Specialaphobia that had me burying the cashmere skein deep in the lace bind a few years ago!
Because I had waited so long to use it though the yarn was discontinued, but it should be easy enough to substitute (Hint: Check the bottom of your bins!) My testers said that they felt like the best yarn to use was more of a light fingering weight, even though both of the yarn that the samples are knit out of are classified as lace weight I would say that they are really more of a light fingering too.
So do you have a single special skein that has been waiting for a pretty project? What did you find in the bin?
