A gift

When My mom came to visit Portland in December, she spent Christmas Eve with me at Yarnia since I had to work.  While we were there she decided that she wanted to make some special yarn to be knit into a cowl/hood for her friend Nancy who will turn 60 this year.  My mom used to be a knitter, but had forsaken the craft for cross stitching years ago (heresy, I know!)  When I asked her if she was going to get back into knitting to complete the gift, she said "oh no, I'd have you knit it."  Oh. I see.  I'll knit it.  Great.

This is the yarn my mom created:



It's one strand plum-colored alpaca, one strand pink-purple wool/nylon blend, and one strand lavender rayon.  The yarn is very pretty, but I don't think it went with the pattern my mom picked out very well.





The pattern is Wavy Feathers Wimple by Caryll McConnell.  It's written for either a fingering or lace weight yarn, I did the fingering weight version.  The pattern is not charted, which for me is a bummer, but it could be charted pretty easily if you really need to work from a chart.

I don't think the yarn and pattern go well together because I think the lighter strand of rayon makes the yarn too tweedy to show off the lace pattern.



It also doesn't help that there's really no good way that I can think of to photograph a lacy cowl.  It's either laying flat so the double thickness obscures the lace or scrunched up around your neck.  If you have suggestions let me know.  



This puppy is now taking it's chances with the USPS to get to New Mexico where it can meet it's new owner.  The pattern is easy enough to memorize as the majority of it are plain knit rows.  I would consider making it again, but I do wish it were charted.