Harmonia II - TA-DAAH!!

I had a fun weekend, pointedly NOT grading papers and instead happily knitting away on my second Harmonia's Rings cowl, which I named Sangioevese after the savory Italian red wine grape.

I finished in what seemed like no time at all!! Here is a gallery of the finished object, although photos can't really do justice to the effect, especially the beads. Threading two dozen wavy leaves onto the mohair yarn was no picnic (I could *never* have made the crochet hook method work with two thickish plies & all that fuzz!!), but the result was well worth the extra effort. Between the rich cranberry color and the AB glow, they truly sparkle, and they match the yarn *perfectly*. I took a whole bunch of pictures, trying to capture them from different angles. As always, click on any image to see a closeup view.

Yet for all that the cowl looks great on its own, without a person wearing it, the real genius of the design lies in the fit & drape. I will have to get my husband to photograph it on me, so that you can see what I mean. The fabric is subtly shaped to nestle itself around your neck & shoulders in the most incredibly cozy & inviting way. Once you have this garment on, you NEVER want to take it off again, at least not while there is still that icy chill in the air...

It would make a scrumptious gift too. Right off the bat, I can think of several people on our Christmas list who would love to have something like this. Almost any soft worsted-weight yarn would do, as long as it feels nice against the skin. My stash had better look out, then, because I could easily make several more of these without having to buy another skein!

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.

Moebius Cowl update

First, a technical note...

The initial, Moebius portion of the Harmonia's Rings cowl consists of four 12-row pattern repeats (= 8 rings) done on a long (40” or 47”) circular needle specially twisted for the purpose. Stitches in the 1st half of each Moebius round add fabric to the upper or neck edge; stitches in the 2nd half, to the lower or yoke edge. On the 3rd and 4th pattern repeats you begin shaping the yoke by gradually increasing the # of stitches in the 2nd half of the Moebius round, while the # of stitches in the 1st half of the Moebius round remains the same. Then you do a picot (or beaded picot) cast-off on that 1st half of the stitches, finishing off the neck edge, and finally join the 2nd half of stitches into a simple (now non-Moebius) round on a shorter (24”) circular needle to complete the remaining rings of the yoke, winding downwards below the Moebius crossover.

Opting to forgo the beads this time, I did a simple picot bind-off and have now begun work on the lower yoke portion. The 24" circular needle is visible at the lower edge of the photo above, where the stitches are obviously gathered together rather closely, certainly more so than they eventually will be, once the piece is off the needles. With the subtle shaping, I am confident that it will settle nicely onto my shoulders.

Call me crazy, but the textured pattern of the concentric rings in this ivory (natural wool) color perversely reminds me of the leaning tower of Pisa...

Left-Handed Moebius Knitting!!!

What a HOOT!! Check this out...

Somewhere along the way in recent weeks, while trolling for small gift-friendly projects like scarves & neck-warmers, I ran across the Moebius cowl known as Harmonia's Rings by Sivia Harding. It uses Cat Bordhi's ingenious Moebius cast-on (YouTube instructions here), and I became so curious about what would happen if I tried the technique left-handed that I finally dove into my stash this morning and came up with some natural ivory Brown Sheep wool yarn that could be employed for an experimental run.

I had no trouble at all following the instructions and got it to work on the first try, simply by doing a mirror-image of whatever Cat Bordhi did. My lefty Moebius may be twisting the other way from the right-handed version. I can't quite tell. But that won't matter. It's a really fun knit, fast & easy. I'm using US size 9 (5.5 mm) needles, which are a real change of pace from my usual tiny-gauge stuff. Just click on the image above to get a closer look.

If this first attempt with the Brown Sheep works out as nicely as I expect, I'm hoping to make a second deluxe version of the same pattern with some mohair yarn that I have left over from about 20 years ago. I'll probably have to combine two different colors of the mohair, because I don't have enough of either one, so I wanted to complete the pattern in a single color first, both to learn the Moebius technique and to get to know the architecture of the design so that I could then decide how to place the colored bands.

If you can believe it, the pattern actually calls for a ring of *BEADS* around the neckline. Sivia Harding is nuts about beads, as she confesses in this often-cited Knitty editorial. I've ordered some special beads to go with the mohair (heck, it helped fill out the emergency order for the Queen of the Night's extra magatamas), but I'm not sure if I will try to pair anything with the ivory yarn or not. One of the topazes might work, or maybe I'll stick with a simple picot edging this time. We'll see...