theraineysisters knitting and so much more

The Killer Queen Cowl is running rampant through my Wednesday Social Knitting group at BeWoolen in Champlin.  Being someone with strong FOMO* genes,  I jumped on the bandwagon!

I already owned a skein of Malabrigo Washted in Cumparista, so I just needed the main color.  I went with Malabrigo Rios in Teal Feather — it takes 1 ½ skeins of the background color.  At first I was concerned about the lack of contrast, but I think it’s okay.  The cowl is a pretty quick knit.  There’s always something to “get to” and the stitches used are fun.

The back can be seamed or buttoned, but most of us thought the buttons really added.  The cowl is long and narrow in the front, but can be made wider by unbuttoning some of the buttons.

PS to Chloe: I have no idea what the name means, nor do I care for it!

PS2 to Anne: I’ve heard the reference to Queen before, but I am not at all familiar with their music!  But it makes sense!!

* Fear of Missing Out

I just finished a sweater that I love!  It is the Zig Pullover by Andrea Mowry.  The original has a “Charlie Brown” vibe, which I sought to minimize by using three gradient grays.  The yarn, Léttlopi, is a favorite — squishy and wooly!  Maybe too wooly for some?  I followed the pattern pretty closely.

I love the shoulder and neckline:

I knew the sweater would end up too short, so I added two inches before the bottom zig.  However, I miscalculated how much length I would get from the yoke, so it was still short.  The whole sweater was done at that point…how to add length ABOVE the bottom zig without reknitting the whole sweater??  I cut my sweater in two!

I cut it right at the top of the zig.  The sweater was knit bottom up, but I knit an extra 1-½ inches from the top down.  I wanted to graft at the top of the zig because I thought it would be less noticeable and it would give me a good place to weave in ends.  I ended up splicing my grafting yarn, so had very few ends after all.

I was worried that the grafting line or the newly knitted area would show, but blocking did the trick.  And, the length was what I wanted.

One last detail:

I really love this sweater.  The details are really cute and the fit is great.

PS to Kim: I ordered the leather tags from an Etsy shop.  But, it took so long to get them I had completely forgotten about them!  Imagine my surprise when these cute tags arrived! ::eyeroll::  There are a lot more options out there now because these tags are “in.”  Mine are pretty stiff leather — softer would be better.