... .-- ..-..

Translation: swf

The Vital Statistics

Pattern: Attabi Wrap by Laura Chau, but all modifications are based on robbyracoon's delightful 'morse code' version (and modeled by our equally delightful babysitter, Nadia).

Yarn: Classic Elite Yarns MountainTop Vista (50 per cent wool, 50 per cent alpaca) in shade 6076, 4.8 skeins; Manos del Uruguay Silk Blend (70 per cent merino, 30 per cent silk) in shade 3073, 0.28 skeins.
Needles: 5mm.

Start to finish: 28 June to 17 September 2012. Actual knitting was finished in July ...

Stash/recycle content: Alas, no.

Comments: I must repeat that this project is an unabashed copy of robbyraccoon's 'morse code'; joining the wrap into a cowl, leaving a notch at the border, the colour scheme, everything.

Reproducing this cowl was a great design and thinking challenge for me - initially I purchased (online) the exact same main colour yarn but found that in the wool it wasn't really the colour I was wanting. I really had to analyse what textures and what quality of yarn I needed to recreate the object of my obsession.  The trick was to pair something rustic with a bit of halo (MountainTop Vista, comes in great natural shades) and something smooth with sheen (silk content in the Malabrigo made it perfect and I love the way it moves ever so subtly from gold to amber to pink).

I didn't weave in the contrast thread Malabrigo as I knit: tedious. Instead I knit the entire round and then wove the contrast thread in as I slipped the stitches purlwise: still tedious but slightly less so. I also used a separate strand of contrast thread on every row, instead of one long strand. To finish them, I trimmed and spit felted the ends together so there was no weaving in of ends.

I did a provisional cast on for the i-cord bind off and grafted the stitches together after completing the bind off. This worked well but I think would have been better if I had cut the yarn after finishing the body of the cowl and started with a fresh piece of yarn, instead of striving to avoid two ends and making it a bit messy.

Verdict: Oh, so many variations that you could do with this pattern; the mind boggles. I'm very happy with this version and it has made a wonderful gift to a wonderful friend (I've made something for everyone in our fantastic neighbour family across the road now, hooray!)

in the sink

But not down the drain (phew!).

This is my Attabi Wrap/Cowl/Infinity Loop having a little soak before blocking (so to speak):

And here it is 'blocking', that is, stretching out:

This is how I have had good results blocking a long cowl before - instead of lying it flat and risking creases, I block them in the round:

Step 1 - pad a broom with a couple of towels.
Step 2 - loop cowl over padding and suspend broom between two chairs, or, if the cowl is really long as was the case here, between two lines on the clothesline.
Step 3 - weight it down with a heavy book resting on a bundled up towel.

I have used the most recent Haruki Murakami here - 1Q84 - and I fear that this is the only use that I will have for it. After having waited months for my turn to read it from the library, I don't think there is any way I could get through it in the allotted three-week time period.

Anyway, there is a significant difference in stretch factor between the i-cord cast-off edge and the rest of the cowl, so I concentrated the not insignificant weight of Murakami there. I may use the woven floats to tighten the opposite edge up a bit, or not - will try it on first to see how it sits.

swf

Do you enjoy reading about other people's nutty knitting pursuits (as I do)? About their, ahem, knitting obsessions? If so, read on ...

One of my favourite features on Ravelry is the 'friend activity' tab (where is it? under 'my notebook' click on friends and then it's the second tab along from the left). This feature allows you to peek in at what patterns and projects your ravelry friends have recently chosen as their favourites, what they are adding to their knitting queue, yarns they are purchasing (and a couple more things beside). This is where I am most often apprised of what's new and where I come across projects that I may otherwise have missed and where I first came across the fabulous 'morse code', an elongated cowl version of Laura Chau's Attabi wrap.

I rarely knit something in the yarn that the pattern indicates (it's usually way too expensive). (Except I did knit Kieran Foley's 'Kerchief' in exactly the yarns indicated and was even moved to try stranded knitting for the first time ever so it's an exception in more ways than one.) And I'm not sure that I've ever acually been moved to replicate someone else's project, that is until now.

Another thing I really like about Ravelry is being able to virtually paw through other people's stash and thereby acquire yarn that is not otherwise easily available or at a much better price (or both). That's how I came to own ten balls of Rowan RYC Baby Alpaca DK in Cheviot. Someone was selling nine balls on Ravelry and didn't want to split the lot and as it was the same cost as buying just five balls brand new and I couldn't get hold of any brand new, except for the ball that I had already bought on ebay to check out the colourway ... yes, ten balls. Ah yes, Baby Alpaca DK being the yarn from which 'morse code' is knit ...

There was no way that I could get hold of the other yarn, Viola Silky DK as the independent dyer is on a two-year break on a sheep farm somewhere, so started shopping around for a contrast. I ended up with some madelinetosh tosh DK in Betine, but that wasn't quite right.

Actually, the Cheviot also wasn't quite right - colours in photos online can be deceiving and it's much paler and greyer than I was searching for. Nor were either of the Road to China Light skeins that I bought (moonstone and dusky quartz) quiet the thing either, wrong composition for the main yarn which needs to be a matte, slightly fuzzy alpaca-ish yarn to contrast with the shiny smoothness of a silk blend. (But they are going to make a beautiful subtly striped hat or neckwarmer or something once I decide on it.)

Finally, I realised that what I want to replicate is the look - matte fuzzy alpaca with a contrasting (and lighter) silk blend. So I have settled on:

Classic Elite Yarns Mountaintop Vista, an alpaca blend in natural colourway '6076' and Manos del Uruguay Silk Blend in 3075. I hope it works well.

Along the way I also managed to pick up three skeins of Malabrigo Finito in colourway 'pearl ten'. I'm sure I'll think of something to knit with it.