My husband and I visited Alaska a few years back. The only way to see certain glaciers and places is to go by boat, so that's what we did. I packed a lot of knitting, a down jacket, a cozy hat and my camera - that was pretty much all I needed.
Years later, I think of that trip often. The landscape of sea meeting sky, glaciers looking like alien terrain and the sheer beauty everywhere you look shows up occasionally in my dreams. I've always preferred the cold and there's such magic and mysticism in the air there. If you've never found yourself on a boat navigating icebergs and day dreaming while gliding silently along, I cannot recommend it enough.
With those memories in mind, I created the Skagway Wristers & Cowl set. Designed to be unisex and knit in The Fiberists Curie Heavy Worsted on US 8s, it's designed to not only be warm and fun to knit, but you can get both the cowl AND the wristers out of 1 hank of each color. It's truly a project fit for traveling when you can only bring a couple hanks of yarn and 1 set of needles!
I've designed in this yarn before and I love how the colors are named after elements. It says on their website, "We approach the creation of our products with a research based process. We get our inspiration from the work of influential naturalists and scientists and their discoveries of colors, forms, and structures." Cool (and why I chose the blue "Glacier"). I also love thick, single-ply wool. There's something satisfying about how nicely it knits up, especially in contrasting colors and an exciting chevron pattern.
Starting off with a provisional cast on which is then kitchenered together with the live stitches at the end, the cowl is knit in rows instead of rounds, which allows you to go as long as you wish to get the look you want. There are no gussets on the wristers, meaning they knit up quickly without having to worry about increases or which wrister is meant for which hand. They too are knit in rows rather than rounds, which is a pleasant change from the usual DPNs.
As I grabbed my coat before heading out the door this morning, I was reminded that soon enough I'll have to trade in my flip flops for my snow boots. After a brief panic attack when I reminded myself that holiday knitting should be happening NOW, I thought of this set and how many of them I'll be making for friends and family this year. Get those needles going!
Let's give a copy of the pattern away, shall we? Answer the below trivia question correctly to be entered into a random drawing. The giveaway is open to readers worldwide and the winner will be chosen at random on Monday, September 21st:
The nation’s two largest National Forests are located in Alaska. Where are they?
The Skagway Wristers & Cowl pattern is available for download here.
My favorite thing about this book is the storybook component. So often am I telling my son "don't touch mommy's knitting books" and I love that we can share this book together and he can get interested in knitting. The brightly colored book has three cute stories, The Hungry Donut, a tale about a donut trying to consume and entire town, The Underwater Election, a tale about who in the sea should be the treasurer and in charge of the treasure chest and The Lighthearted Lovers, a tale about a blimp and a balloon who fall in love. The stories make up almost 2/3 of the book and while they're a bit over a child's head, I found them funny and loved the landscape and characters imagined by Anna living their lives in Mochimochi Land. A book like this keeps both crafters and non-crafters engaged because there's so much to look at!
