Monday, April 14, 2008

Cowl overlord

Startin' the week off right with an F.O!

and yes, I have now dubbed myself "cowl overlord", deeming the former "Queen of the Cowls" too meek a representation. And given that this is cowl, what --number 6 (?) in about the last year and a half, I feel I'm owed that distinction. heh.



the deets:

yarn: School Products Italian cashmere. 100% cashmere, 3 skeins. Don't know much more about that --kind of a mustard colour...
needles: 5mm addis turbos
pattern: Aspen Neck cowl

You may remember another version of this same cowl that I did in Alpaca about a year or so ago --this one. Some mods this time -- I cast on 100 sts instead of 130 to account for the bigger yarn. It still came out much bigger than the last one I knit, which is totally what I was banking on. I also tend to wear this thing "inside out" for the most part. I dunno, I think the knit side (WS) looks nicer. What is kind of weird about this pattern is that it is 10 rows of purling, 2 rows of knitting repeated. Now, why I didn't just do the opposite of this and then flip it in the end I have no idea. It's just a tube after all, and knitting all those rows instead of purling them would probably have been more enjoyable. But for some reason I am very obedient when to comes to patterns--no matter how simple.



After a washing (and as instructed to do so by the guy at school products...) The cashmere "bloomed" and came out A LOT softer than when I was knitting with it.



Though still not nearly as crazy soft as the swatch the guy had in the store. I'm never sure with handwashing stuff like this exactly how agressive I should be. I find even with blocking things I always tend to go overboard and "submerge" rather than "spritz", though this time I may have erred too much on the side of caution. I think with wear though it'll get even softer.

And, much like my other cowls, it is already in heavy rotation (though will likely have to be put away soon until the fall...)


(takn on its inaugural wearing --an evening of sushi, car maintenance and costco, or these days what amounts to as close as we get to "date night").

Stay tuned --a whopping THREE more F.O's comin' yer way this week (unless of course I get lazy about posting...)

2 comments:

Julia said...

I'm so into that colour right now! I like to call it "butternut squash". I bow to you Cowl Overlord!

Macoco said...

The color of your cowl is beautiful! I made that same pattern and I wondered the same thing about the 10purl, 2 knit rows. I just did 10knit and 2 purl. I'm a rebel like that.