Thursday, September 2, 2021


Pattern:
Sandpiper Scarf by Celeste Young

Yarn: Hue Loco Backyard Chicken Collection in Golden Spangled Hamburg


We got our first pair of hens on the Saturday after schools closed back in March 2020. I remember thinking that school might be closed for a few days and then everything would go back to normal... not quite. 

But as the pandemic went from bad to worse, I could still go outside and hang out with my ladies. Two hens became four, then five, and then four again. A couple of turkeys ended up in our crew, too. Two turkeys that we thought were female, until one day--surprise!--turns out one's a dude.

Our little flock gave me something positive to think about and talk about during a time when there wasn't a lot of good news. So not shockingly, people in my life started to think of me as a chicken lady.

My mom's local yarn store (The Knittin' Coop) is run by another chicken lady. I was able to visit in that magical window between the vaccine release and the delta variant takeover, and the store is full of treasures, like Hue Loco's Backyard Chicken collection. For my birthday, my mom scored one of the yarn sets inspired by hens. Special yarn deserves an equally special pattern, and I knew I wanted something that would really showcase the two mini skeins. I had a couple candidates in mind on Ravelry, but then I remembered the copy of Knits of a Feather by Celeste Young that's been sitting on my bookshelf for years. Flipping through the pages, I spotted the Sandpiper scarf, but instead of shorebird footprints, I saw chicken feet! With edging in a different lace pattern perfect for those mini skeins, this was the pattern. 

There was just one small issue: yardage. But the nice thing about a scarf pattern is that it's easily translated into a cowl pattern. A little math, and I was in business!

What is keeping you sane right now?


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