Knitting for winter.

January is the perfect time to get some knitting in, if you're so inclined. It's usually cold (in the Northern Hemisphere), so just stepping outside provides a vivid illustration of the worth of the craft -- as well as a reminder about the projects you should have gotten to before the mercury dropped so precipitously.

I did get one cold-weather thing done: this hat. (Sorry for the frowny face. I was trying to get a good shot of the button and kind of forgot to smile.) The yarn was an impulse buy at the Shenandoah Valley Fiber Festival last fall. It's by Shalimar Yarns and it's superwash merino, cashmere, and silk: cuddly and warm. It's also bulky weight, which is thicker than regular worsted weight yarn, which means the project knits up quicker. Anyway, the colorway, Skyline Drive, was created by Shalimar for the festival, and I liked it a lot. I also happened to have that big moon button, so I stuck it on the hat.

After I started wearing the heck out of the hat, I thought about how nice it would be to have a cowl in the same yarn. Unfortunately, I didn't have enough left. Fortunately, my daughter Amy had bought a skein, and she gifted it to me at Yule. (Thanks, Amy!)

This is where my poor planning comes in. I didn't cast on for the cowl until tonight. It's supposed to be really cold again tomorrow, and I won't have this done. But I've made progress, as you can see, and I'll definitely have it done for later in the winter. (That's Mr. Wommy in the background. People on Ravelry often post photos of their work together with their cats, and people who don't have cats sometimes ask why we get our cats to pose with our work. What they don't understand is that there's no coercion involved; the cats simply show up.)

Under the cowl, and to the right, you can see my other work-in-progress: a Wrought Iron shawl, which I referred to on Facebook yesterday as the Endless Colorwork Shawl of WTF Was I Thinking. It's a long rectangle -- 320 non-repeating rows -- and I'm almost half done. The "non-repeating" part is important; with a lot of knitting patterns, once you've done a few repeats, muscle memory takes over and you can watch TV or even have a conversation while you knit. With no repeats, you have to concentrate all the time. I can't tell you how many rows I've had to rip out when I've gotten to the end and realized I miscounted somewhere along the way. In other words, it's slow going.

It's also slow going because I'm doing both continental and English knitting in the same project. These terms refer to the way the stitch is made. Most people learn to knit English style, which is where you hold both the yarn and the working needle in your right hand; you stick the needle through the old stitch and wrap the yarn around the tip of the needle to form the new stitch. I, however, learned to knit continental style, in which you hold the working needle in your right hand, but the yarn in your left hand; you make a stitch by poking the needle through the old stitch and catching the yarn with its tip. I find that continental style gives me more control over the tension on my yarn. But I have a relatively new problem with English style: I'm flexing my right wrist a lot, and it's causing my carpal tunnel syndrome to flare up. Yesterday I did ten rows on the ECSofWTFWIT, and this morning I needed ibuprofen for my right hand.

And then, too, the directions call for knitting the shawl in a long tube; when the colorwork is done, I'm to cut the tube open and add a border all around. I've done the technique before, but it just adds another layer of complexity. Bottom line: It will be a while before this project is done, but it's going to be beautiful.

Compared to all that, the Oak Park was a piece of cake. The pattern is by Laura Aylor, and the design reminds me of the Eden Prairie shawl I made a few years ago -- although this one is more Mondrian than Frank Lloyd Wright. You can make it as either a scarf or a cowl; I opted for the cowl. It turned out well, as you can see, but it's wider than the other cowls I've made, and I need to figure out how best to arrange it when I wear it. The Mondrian-like blocks kind of lose their impact when they're all bunched up around my neck. But I may wear it tomorrow, even though it doesn't match my hat. It's going to be cold!

***
These moments of chilly knitting blogginess have been brought to you, as a public service, by Lynne Cantwell.

There's a fiber festival? Alpaca my bags.

Autumn may have started last week, according to the calendar, but today was the first day that really felt like fall in the mid-Atlantic. So of course, I used it as an excuse to trek west for the annual Shenandoah Valley Fiber Festival.

We've been attending this little sibling to Maryland Sheep and Wool for the past couple of years. When I say they're siblings, I don't mean to say they're run by the same people; what I mean is that they both cater to fiber arts enthusiasts -- knitters, spinners, and weavers. However, there are also a few exhibits for farmers who own sheep or other fleece-producing animals, like these alpaca, as well as contests for sheep farmers and sheepdog trials.

Maryland Sheep and Wool happens at the beginning of May. It's an easy drive from my house, but every year, we talk about making a weekend of it because the fair is so darned big. They have more than 250 vendors (and, according to their website, more than 600 sheep). By the time you've seen the whole thing, you have to think long and hard about whether you want to go back to get the perfect yarn you saw but didn't buy because it was at the first booth you visited -- a booth that's now about a mile away, on the other side of the fairgrounds. Well, maybe it's not quite a mile away, but it feels like it.

Dude, comb your hair...

The Shenandoah Valley Fiber Festival is much smaller -- only about 125 vendors, and in a much smaller area. You can scope out all the booths before lunch, if you push it, and then have plenty of time to weigh your purchasing priorities before heading home. Plus it's fall, not the beginning of summer. And the part of the fairgrounds where the festival is held is mostly under trees. In all, it's a less overwhelming experience.

That's not to say the selection is lacking. I still saw a lot of yarn today. A lot of yarn. And I managed to find everything I was looking for (and a few things I wasn't, like a beautiful new wooden spindle with a Tree of Life design etched into the whorl).

I find myself buying most of my yarn at festivals these days, rather than at boutique yarn shops. The selection is wider and the prices are about the same, And at a festival I'm typically buying from small producers who not only spin and dye the yarn they sell, but are also behind the cash register (well, the iPad with a credit card reader attached). Which is not to say that local yarn shops are a bad deal; they're convenient, they have knowledgeable staff, and they're small business owners, too.

I used to be frugal -- okay, cheap -- when it came to buying knitting patterns and yarn. But after I became an indie author, I realized that knitting pattern designers and yarn spinners and dyers are in the same boat I am: we're all producing a quality product, and we deserve to be compensated for our time and effort.

***
These moments of fibrous blogginess have been brought to you, as a public service, by Lynne Cantwell.