Yarns that Whisper

I knit for a very short time on my sweater this morning.  sometimes you just have to give your hands a rest.  So being it was my zoom knitting day, I had a good long think about what I was going to knit.  I am trying not to start a hundred different things so I was restricting it to what was in my WIP chest.  I dug around for a bit and came up with a very pretty shawl that I was working on.  

I was knitting Carina Spencer's Brush Creek Shawl with some Truly lovely delicate Shilasdair yarn that a friend, Rae gave me a few years ago.  The yarn is gorgeous stuff and while I liked the design, I wasn't really committed to it.  I am very committed to the yarn though.  It is a soft blend of merino, angora, cashmere and baby camel and it deserved a pattern I really liked.  Here it is in its shawl incarnation.

I do wear shawls here at home.  They cover the back of my neck if I am not wearing a turtleneck.  I appreciate them, but the ends kind of get in the way when I am doing things.  What I really, really like to wear is my cowls.  The one I made of Adam and Eve and some Shibui Silk Cloud is in constant use.  I also use the Topsy Turvy Moebius made from a Skein of Silk Mini Maiden from Handmaiden. That has been in constant use since I finished it.  I also wear the cowl I made for keeping in my car for emergencies except it is out in my car.  For emergencies.   Clearly I need more soft delicate cowls.  I did knit one the other day but that is going to be one for the car.  It is too long and a bit bulky for in the house.  It is nice though.  

It struck me that what this yarn needed was a cowl pattern for 3colours with some interesting stuff going on but not too much patterning.  The angora in this gives the yarn its flair and show so you don't want to hide that with lots of lace or cables.  This is one of those yarns where it just needs to speak its own truth.  And I just happened to remember Joji Locatelli's 3 Color Cashmere Cowl.  That was exactly what I was looking for.

That deep orange red madder colour will do the showy bit and the other two softer tones will be doing the alternating dance.

I just finished the first plain section.  Plain is not really the right word.  There is an alternating openwork pop every few stitches and rows to keep you focused and on your toes.  I have just added the second colour and then that whole repeats again, first in the mushroom, then in the natural.

The stitches are just utterly perfect as they go round and round.  The yarns whispers.  It doesn't flow or drape.  At the end of this, I know it is just going to whisper and settle into soft folds around my neck and I can hardly wait to wear it so I can whisper back.