In January, my good friend Kirsten gave me a beautiful skein of local wool she had hand-spun and hand-dyed. It's wooly and sheepy, but not irritating, and the resulting yarn is lightweight and airy rather than being a dense, bulky yarn.
It's beautifully thick-and-thin, ranging from super bulky to super fine and plied with a weaving yarn. It's the kind of thing I wouldn't actively spin myself since I can't intentionally spin irregular yarns, but I love the play of color and texture! The skein was giant so I decided to knit a cowl end-to-end in the hopes of using up every last yard.
I chose brioche because it's fun to knit, I don't have many brioche accessories, and I thought it would play nice with the yarn's varying thickness without having to settle for garter stitch. Not that I hate garter stitch, but sometimes you want something more interesting! I cast on provisionally and knit on a US 10.5 needle until the strip was long enough to loop around twice, blocked it flat, then twisted it intentionally and kitchenered it closed. Surprisingly, I didn't use up all my yarn! I think I have enough left for a pair of super simple fingerless mitts, or at least that's what I'm hoping for.
I'm anal-retentive enough that I didn't like how the edges waved in-and-out when the yarn had a particularly thick or thin section. I wet-blocked it using blocking wires along the edges and stretched it to the max for this more open fabric, and in hopes of getting nice straight edges. The edges looked great when I took the cowl off the board but after a few wears the yarn is back to its original wildness. Life blocking lesson: don't fight the yarn. I KNOW this but I also like to see how far I can push the rules ;)
This was a really satisfying, quick knit and it's a great addition to my cold-weather accessory wardrobe. The teals and blues go with a lot of my clothing and I like how versatile long cowls like this are, with the choice of leaving it open or looping it double. Thank you so much for the yarn, Kirsten!