C-O-W-L *-O-W-L *-*-W-L and Cowl was it’s name-O

We were at Hamburger Mary’s for a church fundraiser.  Bingo night.  It was great fun.  In between the drag queen-led Bingo games, the church was handing out raffled door prizes.  Mommy won one!  Mommy won a knitting basket, lined with a fabric scrap and complete with 2 skeins of Alpaca and Merino hand-spun wool, size 9 bamboo 24” circular knitting needles and instructions for a cowl: Tweed Cowl Pattern by Melina Martin Gingras.

Mommy immediately gave the basket to me and said I could make whatever was in it for her.  I got to keep the basket :)  (She, of course, got the fabric piece for her quilting collection.)

It just so happened that I had meetings and trainings at the State Bar Offices in Madison over the next two days.  By the time I came home Friday night, I had a finished cowl for Mommy.

This was my first experience working with hand-spun fiber.  I liked it a lot.  The different textures and thickness as the yarn works through your fingers gives some neat variety.  The yarn worked out smoothly and gave the finished piece an extra level of coziness.

The pattern was pretty simple, a combination of basket weave and knit and purled sections.  I only needed one stitch marker to keep track of where my row started.  Somehow, I managed to lose my stitch market while sitting still at the meeting.  Needing something, I improvised and used the ring from my finger.  It worked well, and thankfully, I didn’t lose that, too.  (I later found my stitch marker; it’d fallen into my bag.)

The cowl looks great on Mommy – everything looks great on Mommy.  And now she’s all set for the start of autumn.

yarn: OMG Handspun by Melina Gingras, 70% Alpaca/30% Merino, 8wpi (Aran), 3 oz.