My Sister Knits has Andrea Mowry’s Ooey Gooey Cowl on display! If you loved the design of her Ooey Gooey sweater for The New York Sheep and Wool Festival (fondly known as Rhinebeck) this year but didn’t want to take on a large project, this cowl is for you!

This soft and cozy cowl uses both Yarn Story Fluff (formerly Les Garcons Fluff) and Spincycle Dyed in the Wool. The pattern suggests using a lace weight Suri alpaca held double to create a sport weight yarn. Fluff is a wonderful substitute because it’s already a sport weight so there’s no need to double!

There are only two colors, the main color and the contrast color. Spincycle gives it such a colorful appearance that you’d think more colors were used, which makes it an ideal project for beginning colorwork knitters. This pattern will give you plenty of chances to perfect catching long floats! Brooklyn Tweed has an excellent video tutorial that makes this easy. You’ll also get to practice a provisional cast on and here are two excellent videos for that! One by Andrea Mowry and one by Very Pink Knits.

Ooey Gooey is knit in a tube so the wrong side of your work will be hidden inside! Fluff ensures that it will be lightweight and snuggly. The moebius effect happens at the end after it’s blocked, right before it’s seamed.

If you’d like to substitute other yarns, we encourage you to choose something soft to the touch that is drapey. We’d love to help you find the perfect yarn for this project so please ask us!

A sampling of our Spincycle Dyed in the Wool colorways

Now, a thought about the grafting together (formerly known as the Kitchener stitch) of the two ends. This sounds intimidating but it doesn’t need to be. It’s an incredible method of joining two sets of live stitches in an almost invisible seam. Andrea Mowry has an excellent video, so does Stephen West, and there are many more. You need to set aside a chunk of quiet time when you won’t be disturbed, play your favorite instructional video, take a deep breath, and start. Plan to finish in the same segment of time that you started. Yes, it requires concentration but you’ll be fine! We have confidence in you!

In other news:

The Juni and Si trunk show is here! There are glorious colorways from tonal to variegated and even some speckled, all fingering weight sock yarn. This yarn comes to us from Jean who lives about 30 minutes west of Seattle in the Cascade mountains. Juni and Si is named after her grandchildren, Juniper and Silas. Take a look at the names of the colorways; they are all named after songs!

Saturday, November 29th is Small Business Saturday. It’s a day set aside to celebrate and support the small businesses that are such an essential part of daily life. We are recognizing this day with special treats for our customers, both food and non-food! We invite you to join us!

Also, we’re offering a 20% discount on one item with the donation of a pair of socks Friday and Saturday. We’re getting closer to our goal of 1,000 pairs donated!

Happy knitting,

Ooey Gooey Goodness!

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