Wednesday, May 29, 2013

Infinity cowl or cat bed?

The 9th project I completed as part of the 50 project project started life as a kit I bought at a knitting retreat in Carmel, California, about a million years ago.  I took my daughter Taylor along with me for a girl's weekend and we had a fabulous time.  I think she was about 12 years old at the time.  It was at an old spa/hotel near the beach, so I spent some time in knitting classes, we went for massages, had some nice meals and went to the beach.  She put up with us old ladies talking about knitting and she actually spent a little time doing some herself.
That was in the days when novelty yarns were really coming into their own - people were churning out fun fur scarves like nobody's business.  Wal-Mart's shelves were full of the Lion Brand's version, and even the high class yarn companies got into the game.
 
Even at the time I bought this kit I knew I would never make the shawl pattern that was included, but this yarn was just so much softer than any of the other nylon/polyester stuff I'd felt before, and it also came with 4 balls of Muensch Touch Me, which I was very enamored with, after buying Sally Melville's Knitting Experience book 2 - The Purl Stitch, where she made a cardigan with Touch Me and felted it to a magnificent veloury shininess.  The kit came home with me and languished in the closet until I included it in my 50 project list and it's number came up.
 
I cast on 180 stitches in the round and started knitting.  I had 6 balls of Prism Yarns Fern (the fuzzy stuff) and 2 balls each of green and maroon Touch Me.  I worked garter stitch in Fern until the ball ran out, then I switched to Touch Me and worked in stocking stitch.  I thought it was getting to wide after 3 balls of Fern and 2 balls of Touch Me, so I cast off and called it done.
That's wrapped around twice - it is very cozy and I might just wear it in Winnipeg, in the winter.  But I've only used half the yarn, so I'm thinking I might make a very soft, very expensive cat bed.  Possibly knitting a strand of Fern held together with a strand of Touch Me and felting it. 

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