At The Speed of Weaving

Like most Americans I spent last night watching at least part of the Superbowl.  Though I did change the channel to watch Downton Abbey and when I was watching I had tuned out the game almost entirely to focus on my book and my knitting.  Because that is essentially all I did yesterday.  I read my book (Beautiful Creatures -- my sister decided to read it before the movie comes out and became obsessed so I have been tasked with reading at least the first one.  Not bad so far) and knit the Wish I Was Weaving This Cowl.  In just over twelve hours.

I don't know what possessed me to knit this cowl so fast.  The last time I knit anything at this speed was my Neon Neely socks and those still took two days for one sock.  Maybe it is the power of the Liz Abinante KAL?  I did not even spend the entire day focused on my knitting.  I wound the yarn and cast on in the morning, but I also ate a few meals, cooked dinner, cleaned, and took a nap.

Wish I Was Weaving This Cowl is the 2013 installment of The Great Cowl KAL, which some may remember from last year.  This year Liz has made things easier on herself and the challenge only consists of one pattern, rather than five.  There is still plenty of time to participate if you want.  You can find more details on her blog or in the Traveling Woman group on Ravelry.  Anyone who finishes and submits their cowl by Feb 10 will receive a second brand new cowl pattern for free.  How cool is that?

The pattern calls for worsted weight knit at a loose gauge.  I used Dragonfly Fibers Super Dijini which I got in my first club shipment last year.  Unfortunately the base has been discontinued, so I could not think of a better use of my little skein of worsted MCN. It's perfect for a little bit of color in our drab, cold February.

FO: The Great Cowl KAL

Well it has been 49 days since the start of this project and here is what I have to show for it

I think it is safe to say that I have enough cowls now.

This challenge has been a lot of fun, and a little stressful.  Turns out I am seriously competitive and hate knitting stockinette on a deadline.  I also have issues knitting really warm fabric in the heat.  But I still enjoyed it.  All of the yarn came out of my stash with the exception of the superbulky pink, which was a destash-gift from a friend.  That one will actually end up in the gift pile because there is no way I'll get good use out of that cowl in our tiny North Carolina winter.

Major thanks to Liz Abinante for designing and coordinating this insanity for the enjoyment of us all.  Waking up at the crack of dawn to download the pattern and knit my fingers off was quite the experience.  I am over cowls for now, but I know I will appreciate them when the temperature drops below 80 and I'm pulling out sweaters rather than tank tops.

Community Yarn

One of my favorite things of all time is getting mail.  I am a child of the internet and love my email, texting, etc, but there is something so fun about opening the mail box to see what's inside.  The added challenge of living in an apartment complex is getting to the mail before the office closes so that if you get a package you can pick it up and not have to wait an entire weekend to get whatever goodies were in your box.  This is the problem I had on Saturday which is why it took until today for me to get a sizable lightweight box sent to me by my good friend Erica.

Yarn!  Erica and I are both participating in designer Liz Abinante's Great Cowl KAL and I had whined to her that I was going to have to buy yarn for one of the patterns because I did not have any bulky in my stash.  Turns out that she had a stash of Rowan Biggy Print an a truly obnoxious shade of pink that she had bought on a destash and was more than willing to share.  So it looks like we may be knitting matching cowls in a few weeks.

The Cowl KAL, by the way, has been going great.  I finished the first pattern in just a few days, but have not taken any FO pictures because the buttons I ordered have not yet arrived.  I'm pretty sure I'm going to have to go through my "normal" buttons and find some for the finishing so that I qualify for the next pattern.  Then I'll just take those off and attach the nice ones when they arrive.  In the meantime it has been great fun to see everyone's finished cowls up on the group thread.  It was amazing how fast it took off when people started catching wind of what was going on.  And it has been like being a part of a knitting community more than anything I have done lately.  I'm pretty alone in my crafting here.  I have yet to make friends outside of work and even though I live only a few minutes from an LYS they are truly never open and so I have yet to find any sort of knit night that fits my erratic schedule.  The great thing about the Cowl KAL is that it has been filling that need for me.  In addition to the group enthusiasm, Erica and I had a skype date when the first pattern came out and I'm hoping we will try this again for the next.  Even Liz has been getting into the fun of it.  She has been lovely on the boards helping people out and was so sweet as to tweet responses when I had questions or wanted to share my excitement.  Maybe I'll look into getting more people involved in a group chat about the patterns, there is a chat feature on Ravelry.  In the meantime, I'll be tweeting away my progress with the hashtag #cowlkal and there's still plenty of time if you'd like to join in on the fun!