Afghan, an FO

My son asked me to knit an afgan for a friend and his fiance.  He chose the Hue Shift Afghan. 

I bought the kit from Knitpicks. The yarn is their Brava Sport.  Synthetics aren't my favorite but I wanted it to be machine washable. I thought it was going to be quick, but it took all year, in my piecemeal knitting fashion. I had many, many ends, and wound up using fraycheck to be sure they were secure. (That was good a good idea and I may use it again).   

The happy couple were happy with the result, done in the "decor" colorway. I delivered it to their home only a month late. It did indeed match their decor!

Knitting Yowes

Having completed almost all of my holiday knitting, I am feeling free to pursue a couple of new projects. I was captivated by Kate Davies' Rams and Yowes. (Thank you Kate!)  So glad to know that I was misspelling "ewe" at least by Scottish standards!

I'm only several inches into it but here is a sample couple of rows.

I have Maddie and Steeleye Span to thank for my understanding of how to pronounce "yowe" (we call it a "ewe" on this side of the pond)...

The simple repeats of the rams and the yowes remind me of stranded stuff I did in the 80's...and also of Princess Diana's sheep sweater...

(Apparently this pattern was published in McCall's in 1984).

ANYWAY I am  knitting this mostly from handspun.  A couple of years ago I purchased a whole navaho-churro sheep's worth of creamy white roving from Cassie and Kurt at Little Creek Plantation here in South Carolina.  It's a LOT of roving and I wasn't sure what to do with it, especially given that it's a bit itchy next to the skin.

I have found that if I ponder my stash and think about and search for patterns, I can come up with a great combination and this is one of those. (There needs to be a name for this process of matching other than "creativity.")  My gauge is larger than called for but heck, it's a blanket, why not make it big??

Speaking of Scotland, I came upon this fabulous video at youtube.

This an an old video of croft life and sheep on Eriskay, in the Hebrides.  This provoked me to learn a little more about the Highland Clearances which despite having been to Scotland I did not learn about.