Wrap it Up!
We have company coming this week, which means I need to get the guest room ready. The guest room also happens to be my yarn room, so, yeah ... it's a huge mess.
I've made a dent by going through the bags I have stashed in there, and in the process I discovered a bunch of cowls and wraps that I have on the needles. I think my Olympics knitting is going to be finishing some of these projects—wrapping them up, if you will!
I actually love knitting wraps. I haven't knit a lot of them; I've been more into cowls for the last couple of years. But I do have a long, wide seed stitch wrap that I rediscovered, and a lace triangular shawl that just needs to be blocked.
And to make matters worse (or better?), the new book Weekend Wraps just arrived on my doorstep. I'm intrigued by Andrea Wong's Interlock Cowl. Andrea figured out how to take two lengths of brioche fabric and lock them together during the knitting process.
The process is elegant in its simplicity. You begin by knitting several inches of the brioche pattern, which is cast on provisionally. When you get to a certain length, you pick up the held stitches and brioche knit across the entire row, leaving a keyhole opening (Figures 1 and 2, below). The piece is then knit to the required length. The second piece starts as the first did, but went it gets to the required length, it's inserted through the keyhole and joined together, locking it with the first piece (Figures 3 and 4). When the knitting is complete, the pieces are joined together using the three-needle bind-off.
Pretty slick, right? The Interlocking Cowl is totally doable in a weekend of knitting. Maybe it should be one of your Olympics projects!
 | | Putting together the Interlocking Cowl |
The Interlocking Cowl is just one of the gorgeous projects in Weekend Wraps. Cecily Glowik MacDonald and Melissa LaBarre brought together some of the knitting world's best designers for this book, and there are some really lovely projects. Here are four of my favorites:
 | Clockwise from bottom left: Nonotuck Wrap by Bristol Ivy, Getaway Poncho by Melissa LaBarre, North Star Cardigan by Amy Christoffers, Bias Cable & Lace Stole by Leila Raabe
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That North Star Cardigan is going in my queue. It's made up of two rectangles and three-quarter length sleeves. I love how the lace pattern looks in this large-gauge (15 sts = 4 inches) knit. The lower body rectangle is worked from side to side and the upper body is worked vertically, so the lace pattern meets itself perpendicularly, which creates a cool design detail.
 | North Star Cardigan, back view
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These sorts of cozy wraps are my favorite cool-weather staples; something stylish to throw on when you're meeting friends for dinner, going to an early fall football game, or just any time you need to keep the chill away. My office is in the lower-lever of our house, and I keep a wrap on the back of my chair even in the summertime.
Get your copy of Weekend Wraps today!
Cheers,
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