knitting honey

 I've never kept it a secret that Robin McKinley is one of my favorite authors.  In fact, one of my first posts on this blog (oh so long ago) was about my joy in discovering her magical words.  And that joy has not diminished one bit upon opening her stories for the second, or third, or probably sixth time(I've lost count on many of them).  I love them all.

 I am still waiting, impatiently, for Pegasus II which is supposed to come out next year.  (Please please please, may that really happen) But she has another book coming out THIS year, called Shadows, which I am most excited for.  I even pre-ordered it.  Something I have never done before.  Anyway, this post isn't supposed to just be me telling you about a magical author, it's supposed to be about knitting too.  Which I hope you don't mind. Because in my mind they are related.

 See that lemon colored book on the middle shelf?  The one sandwiched between Pegasus and Dragonhaven?  Yes, that one.  Chalice.  Right.  So that book is beautiful and thrilling and full of bees and honey of all descriptions.  And though I've only read it twice, the imagery of it is almost always buzzing around somewhere in the very far back reaches of my brain.  About a year ago they were woken up by some lush silky-woolly yarn of the most perfect honey-colored hue.  So I bought it, knowing exactly what it was going to be of course, yarn like that just tells you.  Flat out, no questions asked, you just know what it's saying. Which in this case was "Clara, I will be a cowl, the cowl you've been secretly dreaming of for years.  I will have a honey comb pattern and I will keep you warm."  And so it has.  

I looked at patterns for a while, but none of them were what the yarn wanted to be.  So eventually I took a deep breath and just went for it.  I found two good stitch patterns and basically let the yarn/cowl just knit it's self.    I think it's happy with it, it hasn't told me otherwise.  I finished it last fall in about three days.  I'm telling you this yarn knew what it wanted to be!  And it hardly left my neck all winter.  I've yet to take photos that I'm completely satisfied with, but that's okay.  My ravelry notes are here.

Love, Clara