08 | April | 2014 | First Light Handcrafts

Occasionally, I will be surfing Ravelry or Twitter and I will come across a photo of a new (or not-so-new) pattern and the strangest thing happens. I become utterly and completely obsessed with the item in question and I have to knit it right. this. second.

So starts the story of how I ended up knitting a Winter Birch in a weekend.

Someone on my Twitter feed posted that they were having a KAL of the scarf and while I didn’t have the yarn required to participate, I did have a stunning silver-grey skein of Illimani Silky Baby Llama that I had picked up on a recent trip to a yarn shop in Kitchener. It was the right weight and the right size skein, and I was completely in love with the pattern so I cast on on a Friday evening.

It was ridiculously simple to memorize; I think I had it totally committed to memory by the end of the first repeat.

~Photo by Shireen Nadir

I found the repeats to be like potato chips…”just one more”. Within a couple of days, voila! A gorgeous and soft creation, just the right length for tucking into the front of a coat.

It was already pretty enough, but then my friend Shireen came over, armed with her camera, and took some lovely pics for me. Someday I am going to finish my Craftsy “Shoot It!” class, I swear!

~Photo by Shireen Nadir

I am extremely happy with how it turned out, and considering how quickly I was able to churn it out, the pattern is definitely going to stay at the top of my list for gifting possibilities.

Pattern: Winter Birch by Debbie Stone

Yarn: Illimani Silky Baby Llama in the ever-so-descriptive colourway “1804”

Who Was It Made For? Me? Not entirely sure if it will get gifted elsewhere.

Were There Changes Made To The Pattern? Only in the sense that I knit and knit until I was out of yarn and thus ended up with extra repeats.

Did I Learn Anything New? No

Anything Else? Not that I recall.

Would I Make Another?: I already have it queued for a skein of Handmaiden Great Big Sea.

Sometimes, a gal just needs mindless knitting. There are knit nights, lunch hours with a friend, airports and parent visits. These things all require knitting where I am not trying to remember where the cable crosses are, or how many knit stitches between the YOs and k2togs.

Enter, the Reunion Cowl. Utterly brainless knitting that can be done just about anywhere. And when it’s done with indigodragonfly MCN Lace (now known as MerGoat Lace), it’s pure pleasure to knit.

This is my second of these; the first was knit in a OOAK blue-green colourway in late 2012. But I was always wishing for a red one and Kim and Ron created this lovely colouway a few years back that just cried out to be my newest cowl.

MCN/MerGoat Lace in “Only The Exact Word Word I Used Was ‘Don’t'”

It took a while to knit up, mostly because it was my carry around knitting so I wasn’t entirely devoted to it. I love the way it turned out. Long enough to double up for extra warmth and wonderfully soft and squishy.

I made a couple of alterations, including knitting the first set of garter rounds as flat rows and doubling up the number of eyelet rows to add both visual and knitting interest.

I am sure this won’t be my last one of these. They are a nice change from plain-ish socks when I am looking for easy knitting.

Pattern: Reunion Cowl by Natalie Selles

Yarn: indigodragonfly MCN/MerGoat Lace in “Only The Exact Word Word I Used Was ‘Don’t'”

Who Was It Made For? Me

Were There Changes Made To The Pattern? Added extra eyelet rows to alleviate boredom, and knit the first garter section and seamed it to help avoid twisting my cast on and to avoid purling. I have an unnatural aversion to purling, especially when the rounds are some 300+ stitches long.

Did I Learn Anything New? No

Anything Else? Not that I recall.

Would I Make Another?: Likely!