Sometimes simple is so nice

Last night, instead of working on my sweater or finishing those darn baby booties, I knit this.

Mohair-y Goodness

The Back Story: Years ago when I first started knitting, I purchased two balls of mohair (I can't remember the name of the yarn and the labels are long gone) to knit a scarf for my mother. I had planned to knit a simple garter stitch scarf on large needles. I cast on what I thought was the appropriate number of stitches and proceeded to get uber frustrated. Knitting mohair was hard! I think I ripped the stupid scarf three times before I finally found my groove. The fluffiness of the yarn made the stitches hard to see and I was adding and dropping stitches all over the place. Plus, when you work with what is essentially a fingering-weight yarn on large the needles, the large stitches look rather confusing when you are new to knitting. Thinking there was too much space between the stitches and that I must have dropped one, I would pick up extras. After much frustration and swearing I did manage to complete the scarf. I have no idea if my mother ever wore it or where it is now and I haven't knit with mohair since.

Yesterday when Gub was emptying my yarn drawers she tossed the left over mohair yarn on the floor and I was suddenly overcome with the desire to knit it again. With more years and complicated knits under my belt, I wanted to see how it felt to knit mohair on large needles. So last night I grabbed my size 13 bamboo straight needles and in about an hour I knit up the rest of the yarn. I was gratified to find that this time, it was easy and fun... it makes me feel like I have learned something over these last few years.

Of course, now I have this rectangle of garter stitch mohair fabric and I have no idea what to do with it. One option is to add other random yarn to both ends and make a funky scarf. My only concern with that is that pretty much any yarn I add will be heavier than the mohair and drag it down. Another option is to try to felt it (does mohair felt?) and make some fuzzy coasters for my desk at work. I kind of like this idea but I am not sure how felting is going to work in my new front loading washing machine. What ever I end up doing with the fabric, the act of knitting it was what I really wanted to accomplish. I don't do much in my life without a goal in mind and that gets pretty stressful. Aimless knitting like I did last night is just what I needed to remind myself that not everything needs to have a purpose to be worthwhile.

Cheers!