My Birthday-Worthy Cowl!

My Mum gave me this lovely, unusual yarn for my birthday.

Actually she gave me two and I so wanted to do them justice! They are so beautifully PINK, in such a delicate, understated way (except for the white ball of course) and my Mum really loves pink! So to do honour to her obvious good taste I wanted to make something that the play of different textures wouldn't get lost in.

At our local post office/gift store they are selling these lovely long cowls, the sort you can loop over your neck again to make a short cowl and I was pretty sure it was in a kind of flat brioche stitch. 

I've only relatively recently made the acquaintance with this lovely stitch and my first excursion into that terrain had been in the round with a hat. 

This was quite different. But I thought this particular pattern was just what I was looking for so, nothing daunted, I grabbed my yarny gift and extra yarn to provide a little contrast to the lovely Casoria’s pinkness and headed off… 

...only to stop because I couldn't for the life of me understand the written instructions. I couldn't wrap my head around how the stripes were to be done and it wasn't until I finally found Verdigris’ tutorial that I finally got my head around it! 

When I was doing Brioche in the round I was used to working one set of stitches all around and on the second sweep, doing the alternate stitches. But when doing it flat of course you knit the first set of stitches and then purl the same set. You only start the alternates in the next knit and purl rows. 

Since the “ball” of Casoria actually consists of four “mini-balls” I knit two of the fluffier yarns with the bulky Twilley’s Capricorn Bulky and the two smoother balls with the silkier Sirdar Spree.

 In retrospect, this wasn't the best use of the yarns properties but I was winging it and I only figured it out when I looked at the finished product. Hey, I have another ball left of Casoria. I can always try again! 

The hardest part at the end was undoing the provisional cast on I’d done (you can see it just at the bottom of the picture here) and doing the three-needle bind off. There seemed to be loops going off everywhere! In the end I just bound off with a haste born of desperation and made sure I had no stitches or things that looked like stitches hanging loose! 

I am very pleased with the results. It definitely qualifies as a worthy project for my Birthday-yarn. It is a very striking and relatively simple knit, once you get the hang of it. I can see me making a few more of these. I did cast on 15 stitches instead of the 13 recommended in the pattern but I think I’d even double that if I did it again! Now if only it was cold enough here to wear it!!

See you all next time :)