Tag Archives: Kicking Horse Cowl

Recycled yarn

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This story starts here, with Aimee Alexander’s design: Hungry Horse. Kind of anyway. I knit this hat in Alexander’s test knit of the pattern way back in June of 2017. That’s Anzula Cricket in the Bark colorway at the crown. Shalimar’s Breathless DK is the wine color. And Mountain Colors Mountain Goat is in the middle. Cricket is 10% cashmere. Breathless is 15% cashmere and 10% silk. Mountain Goat pretty obviously by its name is more than half (55%) goat mohair.

I gave my daughter-by-marriage this hat fairly soon after I finished it. It became her favorite favorite hat. A few years ago she told me that and asked me to make her another. I was thrilled to oblige. This time she even picked out the colors.

I knit the 2020 version in Plymouth Yarns Merino Superwash DK. We all thought it quite pretty. I think, over the long haul, it hasn’t rated the same cudos as the original.

My dear DILl let me know a bit ago that her original Hungry Horse was no more. Some thief came by dead of night and stole that hat. What a stinker. Well, maybe it was lost. No matter. She’d really like another one and could it be in the same yarn as the original? Her request and a bit of research on Ravelry to remind myself what yarn I used originally and it dawned on me what probably made that original hat so special: the feel of the cashmere. I recalled the first time I knit with yarn containing cashmere–and it wasn’t all that long ago in my 60 years plus of knitting–it was just the best.

I was too much of a skinflint to buy another skein of Cricket when I needed only about 80 yards to reproduce that Hungry Horse crown. What is a skinflint anyway, in addition to me? The term originated in the 1600’s. A skinflint is so miserly they’ll even “skin” a bit of flint to sell. Flint is a hard substance and skinning some off would take a ton of effort. Plus it’s super plentiful and clearly not worth the effort.

This skinflint had a really nice cowl among my personal wearables: Stephanie Tallent’s Chinle Cowl. It’s a great pattern and this one was the 5th I’d knit. “Had” and “was” are the operative words.

I decided to unravel Chinle and reuse the yarn. I didn’t wash or steam the unravelled yarn. Washing would come later.

Shalimar Breathless was discontinued quite a few years ago. And even if I could find some it’s another one of those mortgage-worthy yarns. But, again among my personal knits, was MeijuK-P’s Summa Stripes Shawl. Such a pretty small shawl. I did wear this one since finishing it in January of 2017. A bit. Small shawl/scarves that need to be pinned to hold them in place have mostly had their day with me. This one’s been languishing.

So.

One more yarn to go. I needed some Mountain Goat.

This scarf is Lion Brand’s old pattern Rib Sampler Scarf. It’s unfortunately no longer available on their website. And the Ravelry link leads only to a photo of the scarf (not the pattern) on the Wayback Machine. It’s a great little pattern and it looks very spiffy in Mountain Goat. But, again, I knit this version in 2009 and just wasn’t getting much use out of it.

I knit Hungry Horse and then gave it a good soak in Eucalan wool wash. Then I put it on GlassHead and made Glass Head sit near one of the heat registers overnight. This first version doesn’t use any Mountain Goat. I went with cashmere content for all 3 sections. When I knit it again, and I did, I decided that the Chinese Waitress cast-on I used resulted in too much of a flare. Still, though, it’s an excellent hat that closely echoes the original.

The second version duplicates the original. I used exactly the same yarns and even two of the same colorways.

A simple long tail cast-on eliminated that bit of flare at the outset. Success!

As for the rest of the Mountain Goat? Here’s its second life.

This is another Aimee Alexander pattern in the same series of horse-named patterns: Kicking Horse. The pattern calls for DK weight and Mountain Goat is a light worsted. The pattern also calls for three sections of the diagonal lace. I’d have been pushing it on the yardage, so I stopped after two repeats. I’m liking cowls more than scarves these days. This is a good one.

Unravelling yarn to knit something new out of old yarn proved a fun and frugal way to navigate through the knitting universe. I plan to do it again sometime soon.

Putting leftovers to use

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This is Aimee Alexander’s Kicking Horse cowl, knit in DK-weight Malabrigo Silky Merino. Excellent yarn. Excellent pattern. The pattern is easy to work and clearly written. Just be careful not to forget a yarn over in the mesh sections. And be sure to not add a yarn over at the end of the right-leaning mesh section. ‘Cuz if you do that the diagonal leaning mesh gets scrambled and you’re toast. You probably already guessed how I know that.

I made the largest circumference cowl. Blocked it’s 9 inches by 52 inches. I soaked it, blotted out the excess water in a towel, and then dried it flat without pinning it.

Our beloved Malabrigo, with its frequent color differences between skeins, can bedevil us knitters. The gnashing of teeth here resulted from shopping online, though truthfully it often simply can’t be prevented. Here’s what arrived from Lovecrafts.

It was immediately obvious, upon unpacking my yarn, that one skein had much more blue in it than the other two.

Kicking Horse didn’t need much yardage from a third skein. And like Gaul (which would have been a better name for this cowl) it’s divided into three parts. Once I realized that I didn’t need much of the 3rd skein, I figured that the solution was to knit the center left-leaning mesh section (only) in the more-blue skein. That worked nicely.

Sometimes I work hard to figure out what’s to be done with leftover yarn from a project. I work even harder if the yarn is something I especially like. Malabrigo Silky Merino qualifies on that score. Sue Brady’s freebie pattern, Basic Fingerless Mitts, was perfect for my leftover Silky Merino. These mitts took just under 90 yards, even with a few modifications that increased the yardage.

I worked 8 extra rounds before starting the thumb gusset. I also lengthened the mitt beyond the gusset stitches by 4 rounds. And I decided to pick up 4 rather than 2 stitches for the thumb to better close the gap. Plus I lengthened the thumb by 2 rounds. It’s a great fit, both for my hands and the yarn.

Next up is yet another pair of Kris Basta’s excellent freebie slippers Better Dorm Boots for Men. This is the 6th pair I’ve knit in the last few years. Of course there’s nothing that says these need to be for men, though it’s true that Steve’s feet already claimed this pair. I always make two modifications. I knit them in chunky or bulky yarn, rather than worsted weight doubled. This time I used King Cole Shadow Chunky. And I add a generous cuff.

I had two skeins. The slippers used only 1.3 of the 166 yard skeins. What to do with the rest was a bit of a challenge. The new Ravelry freebie by Svart Lamb, Little Fisherman’s Beanie, worked out well. I didn’t want to knit this hat with 3 strands of yarn as the pattern calls for– fingering plus fingering plus Aran–so I simply used a chunky weight. The hat is knit on only 60 stitches. Even though it’s mostly all rib and very stretchy, my modification means that it will have to be a little fisherman who wears this. It’s basically an adult small which, in my experience means that kids can wear it just fine.

When I joined the caston round with the working round to create that distinctive edge ridge, I goofed.  I missed the import of the designer’s instructions at the join stage to “fold these 8 rows so purl stitches would stay inside.” I didn’t have any purl stitches, just ribbing, so I didn’t understand that. What I did to create the error, which would have ended up with the ragged side facing outward when the cuff was folded, is I joined a stitch from the live stitches with the caston edge by reaching inside to pick up the stitch-to-be-joined. That put the smoother edge on the outside of the tube–which isn’t where you want it. What I should have done was folded the work so that the caston edge was on the outside of the tube, picked up a caston stitch first, and then joined those stitches to the working stitches. To fix my mistake, in case others make it too, I turned my work at the first stockinette round and then pushed the work through the center to switch the direction of the knitting. This maneuver created a bit of a hole. But that filled in as I continued to knit.

For a chunky-weight hat, the crown decreases worked out well. 

This is yet another free Ravelry pattern: Finlandia, designed by Paige Buursma. I had one skein of Malabrigo Rios left in a favorite colorway: Archangel. As it turned out, Finlandia is a very dainty hat when it comes to yarn-eating. It used only 50 grams, 105 yards.

I thought I might not be up to knitting a lacy hat. It required a bit of concentration. But this is very easy lace so I gave it a go. I’m so glad I did. It’s an excellent hat.

Finlandia even has a nice set of pinwheel crown decreases.

So, 50 grams of beautiful Rios left. Jessica Ays Narragansett Fingerless Mitts fit my yarn and my yardage perfectly. My friend Harriet has knit 6 pair of these mitts in recent weeks. I decided to join in on the fun.

 

I confess I almost decided against giving them a try after I purchased the pattern and learned that the beautifully textured top of the mitt is created by knitting in the round below. I last knit in the round below on a small sweater for my baby son. My baby son turned 35 in June. I’d worked the sweater in what I now (think) I know as a form of brioche ribbing. When I made a mistake I couldn’t figure out how to fix it. I must have restarted that little sweater a million times.

But it turns out that knitting in the round below is easy peasy because, in this pattern, every other round is all purl stitches on the tops of the mitts. So if you do goof, all it takes is ripping out one round to get back to what amounts to a lifeline of well-behaving purl stitches. Whether just knowing a fix would be easy relaxed me, who knows, but I made no mistakes and the knitting was easy.

These mitts proved the perfect way to use up my Rios skein. I knit the mitts with no modifications and used only 48 grams (101 yards).

It’s a fun challenge to try to keep smallish amounts of yarn out of my leftovers bag.