Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Ending up at 8.5″ the ravishing soft purple collar of my Ariann sweater sits waiting for its cue.

Its cold enough now to want to scarf it up and it’s funny but lots of times I’ll just pull my sweater collar tight and zip up my high-neck jacket to seal! Mission accomplished, with no extra stuff coming untied while I’m active.

This turned out better than I hoped. The roll of the collar in the back neck area is smooth and breaks gently because of the stitch used. Guesstimate of extra yarn used: 150 yds. and I added 4.5″ so, unscientifically, that’s about 35 yards per inch of collar, if you’re playing along ;p

And speaking of playing, drumroll pullease…

the winna of the FreebieFriday3 Gary Owen Aran Style Yarn is Lesa McPeak!!

But who/what the was Gary Owen?? I just could not figure out what the yarn label of this pretty blue vintage yarn meant. But after an interesting email arrived, I had to go read the label again and it became clear. The label actually was marked “Garry Owen”…

Stephanie P. to the rescue: “Garry Owen is a song that originated in the Irish town of Garryowen in the 1800s. It was a drinking song in the British Army which was later introduced to General Custer’s 7th Cavalry by one of its many Irish soldiers (Myles Keogh) who actually came from the town of Garryowen. Garry Owen became the unit’s march song. Supposedly they played it as they entered the Battle of Little Bighorn in 1876. The uniforms they wore were made of various shades of blue.

My husband spent some time with this unit back in the 80s. Here’s their insignia:

INDEED! Fire up the campfire: stories, songs, marshmallows for everyone! WOW! This yarn was a regimental color of this famous unit and maybe was approved for knitting duty somehow for a soldier somewhere! Thanks so much Stephanie!

And thanks so much for everyone who played :)