TL;DR:
So, I have this skein of yarn.
Several years ago, I bought a skein of yarn at a shop in Worcester, Massachusetts.1 It’s made by Handmaiden Fine Yarns, the makers of one of my favorite yarns ever: Sea Silk (70% silk, 30% sea cell). As mentioned above, the yarn in question is Camelspin (70% silk, 30% camel). A dozen years or so ago, everyone was declaring that camel was going to be the Next Big Thing™ in the fiber world. To the best of my knowledge, that never really materialized.2 I remember finding some baby camel at a yarn shop in Delaware about a decade ago, and then have no recollection of seeing any more of it until I encountered a couple dozen skeins in Worcester.
Vital Statistics: Handmaiden Camelspin
- Fibers: 70% silk / 30% camel
- Weight: Sport-weight / 3-ply
- Gauge: 26.0 sts = 4 inches
- Needles: US 2 – 2 ½ / 2.75 – 3.0 mm
- Total Weight: 100 grams / 3.53 ounces
- Total Length: 328 yards / 300 meters
- Texture: Plied
- Color characteristics: Tonal
- Put-up: Hank
A cunning plan…
I would like to make some sort of neck-centric thing (shawl, cowl, scarf) out of this lovely lovely yarn, and I would very much like for whatever project I select to use the majority (90%+) of the hank. I have a few ideas, but none of them have yet jumped out and declared itself the obvious choice. I’m listing what I’ve come up with, but eagerly request input from you, the knowledgeable masses.
Here are my ideas:
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Cabernet Infinity Scarf
by Monika Sirna
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Crofter’s Cowl
by Gundrun Johnston
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Good Luck Cowl
by Christianne Gerstner
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Gratitude Leaf Shawl
by visalisa
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Harmony Shawl
by Judy Marples
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Maluka
by Bea Schmidt
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Pretty Thing
by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee
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Spiralucious
by Anne Hanson
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Textural Healing
by Shannon Squire
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That Nice Stitch
by Stitchnerd Designs
And now it’s your turn.
What say you?
Footnotes
- I’m not entirely sure if the yarn store still exists. All I can remember about it is that it was next door to a bakery, and the counter ran horizontal to the front of the store, about 20 feet from the front door, which was on the far left of the space. If anyone knows the store I’m talking about, please let me know! I’d love to update my ravelry stash notes.
- Maybe the people responsible for making the yarn actually spent some time with camels, and decided that it just wasn’t worth it. (If that’s the case, I absolutely could not blame them.)
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Willow Cowl. Free pattern on Ravelry. I think I’ve made four of them.
By Amelia Lyon?
http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/willow-cowl
Mary Alderdice that’s the one. Looks much prettier than the pattern page photos suggest.
Excellent! Thanks for the pointer! I’ll try casting on shortly. 🙂
If you haven’t done this type of hem before — wait, were you in my colorwork mitts class way back when? Because you really need to make sure the upper and lower hems don’t flip up, by making sure you haven’t knit one round too many before you knit the two rounds together. Let me know if htis doesn’t make sense and I’ll try to do better tomorrow after some caffeine.
Oooh, thanks for the heads up! I was in your color work mitts class! I will read the pattern in the morning, and see if I can figure out the concern, but look forward to any hints. 🙂
Remember how we did a provisional cast-on, then knitted the first inch plain, with a slightly smaller needle, and then used the larger needle to purl a round, to make a fold, and then continued with the pattern, undoing the provo cast-on and knitting it together with the appropriate round, so that you didn’t need to sew in any ends? The smaller needle pulls in the fabric slightly to keep the hem flat and straight. Also, one time that I made it, the scalloped edge didn’t suit the yarn, so I just did the same thing — purled a round to make the fold so that the bottom hem had a smooth edge.
Oh! Yay! Ok, yeah, the magic cuff-that-isn’t-a-cuff thingie. I was just pondering using that in a hat design I’m trying to work out. *claps hands excitedly*
That’s it! And it’s important at the top hem if you don’t want it to flip out and down…although with a scrunchy pattern like this you might not care.
I knit a … oh, bloody hell. It was a gradient kit that everyone was all oooh-ahh over a couple of years back that was essentially a lacy stockinette tube. I had horrible problems with the thing ending up only half the intended height because the top and bottom just flipped everywhere!
I had that problem with the edges of the infinity scarf with a sort of gradient kit. If I ever feel like ripping out the last inch of ribbing, I’ll just do the same kind of cuff or maybe an I-cord bind-off.
it’s no longer free 🙁
Alas, this is true. It was free when I got it. But it’s definitely worth buying.