Overpreparedness

It's that time of year again--while the rest of the country is savoring the last lingering days of their summer, I'm counting the hours until summer is over, done, and gone.

School has started, and darkness is falling noticeably earlier, both of which are counts in fall's favor.

But our cold water is still running lukewarm (from sitting in pipes outside), butter can be softened in an hour at room temperature, and the noonday sun is still enough to bake your laundry in, if you so desire. Three counts for fall.



But look! The hesperaloe pods are going from glaucous green to brown and brittle! (I love bending the stalks so they sproing back and scatter the seeds)

This is also the time of year I start to feel it would be prudent to start stocking up on warm things for fall or winter.



First item to go in this year's stockpile: Gudrun Johnson's Crofter's Cowl. The yarn is Noro Taiyo, which I'd bought in Tucson last year and have been saving up for a Special Project. Taiyo, I discovered, is a single ply with little rough bits of fiber in it, so I modified the pattern by working from bottom to top rather than from both ends to the middle to eliminate the need for grafting. The horseshoe lace only has those nice points on the cast on edge, which means my BO edge is pretty straight and boring, but I was worried that the nature of the color changes and the texture of the yarn would make for a bad grafting experience. And I can live with only having a nice pointy edge on one side of my cowl ; )

The neon yellow and lime green in this colorway had worried me a little bit when I started knitting, but the pinks and browns balance that out nicely. I used exactly half the skein, so I'm tempted to use the other half (which has a great bubblegum pink and carnation red along with a shell gray) for another crofter's cowl, just to see how the colors come out.

Yes, I am modeling my cowl in a tank top. So I may be jumping the gun a bit if I start a big wooly shawl next. It's tempting, though.