Harmonia I & II

I finished the ivory wool cowl — Harmonia I, a.k.a. "Music of the Spheres" — yesterday morning in time to wear it to campus, where it kept me toasty warm all day long, despite the icy Arctic draft from the windowpanes in my office. *Magnificent*.

This is such a clever design: the nubbly textured pattern is not only perfectly symmetrical both front-to-back AND top-to-bottom (as demanded by the moebius technique) but with all those nooks & crannies it also collects and holds in little pockets of blissfully warm air around the neck & shoulders. Although I did not actually sleep in it last night, I took it off just before lights-out & put it right back on again as soon as I awoke. YUMMY.

And when I got home from work yesterday afternoon, I could not resist casting on for Harmonia II (a.k.a. the "Sangiovese cowl"). The yarn is from the deepest, darkest depths of my stash, dating back 20 years or more. I went through a mohair phase in the late 1980's, and these several partial skeins of deep magenta and royal purple were part of an ill-conceived sweater project which thankfully never got very far off the ground. I was happy to salvage the usable remnants during my stash clean-up last summer, and now, lo & behold, they have finally found their true calling. I have named the project for my favorite Italian red wine grape (literally "blood of Jove"). This may be exactly the same pattern as the first cowl, but I think it makes its fashion statement in a different dialect altogether. As always, click on either image to get a closer look.

I bought some very special beads from Earthfaire to go with the mohair: wavy leaves in a rich cranberry color with an AB coating on one side. They came in a little packet of 25 beads, which was just one more than the pattern calls for. The colors match the yarn to perfection, and I think they will add a glamorous embellishment to the neckline.