finished a thing

 I finished the had that I had mostly used as an invigilating project last night.

that's not a terribly true-color photo of it; it's a turquoise color. 

This photo is better

The pattern is Tin Can Knits' "Antler Toque." The yarn is Kelbourne Woolen's "Germantown" - the Germantown label is an old, old one; there are patterns from the early 20th century calling for Germantown yarn. In previous times, other companies (Minerva was one) made the yarn; I guess it's named for the region of Pennsylvania where it was made. I guess it had been a number of years since it had last been made; now Kelbourne yarns is making it again.

It's not a soft yarn - probably best suited for outerwear. It is milled here in the US, and from sheep raised mostly in Montana, so it is a US yarn.  I guess Kelbourne is the distributor; the manufacturer is Germantown wools.

My friend purlewe sent me a skein to try when I speculated whether I wanted to consider it for a sweater. My conclusion is that I would prefer a slightly softer yarn for a sweater. 

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I did start "A Sweater for John" from the Sherlock Knits book. I pulled out some 1824 Wool I had in a mauve color - years and years ago I got it (I think as a Christmas present) for a sweater coat where you held the yarn double - so I had a LOT of it; the other worsted weight yarns I had, I was afraid I'd have not quite enough for the longish, bulky sweater. If I had my druthers I MIGHT have used a different color, but (1) I wanted to start it for my exams this week and (2) pricing yarn online and yikes....I guess I will have to knit from stash for the foreseeable future, prices have gone up and I can't justify buying new yarn any more when I have so much already.

There is a typo in the book, which at first I missed on the correction page - pages 4 and 5 are swapped in the book. I had it mostly figured out but figured I'd e-mail the designer for confirmation which led to a nice little exchange (I was polite, as I always am, and was struck when she commented on my "kindness" - I had wished her a good visit with her parents (she said she was seeing them for the first time in over a year, which was why she couldn't quickly check for sure, but she linked the errata page and there it was. Anyway, I was struck that she thought what I considered sort of the bare-minimum of politeness from me was "kind" - then again, I've heard other people who are public-facing in that way complain about how mean people have gotten, so maybe? But I feel like if you're asking someone for advice or guidance it pays to be polite, and anyway, you SHOULD be polite, you are asking someone to give a little of their time)