How Now Brown Cowl (I know that you saw that coming)

I have to say that I was really apprehensive about the 80 stitches of grafting that was required to finish the Brown Cotton Cowl (rav link), but I'm really glad that I opted to follow the pattern. I had one false start, but after the first set of decrease points were clearly NOT lined up, it was pretty easy to pick out the graft and start over. This is an ideal quick gift (so if you are a person I give gifts to, don't be surprised if you get one), because both useful and pretty without being overly fussy. I haven't washed or blocked this yet, and given the inelastic properties of cotton I don't plan to open up the pattern much--it'll just stretch out. The pattern is the Crofter's Cowl by Gudrun Johnston, and it's available free on Ravelry. The yarn is Blue Sky Alpaca dyed cotton, and I used about 75 grams of yarn.

As soon as I cast off this cowl, I started another brown cowl. Different yarn, different pattern, different color, but still a brown cowl:

This one is for a friend who (as far as I know) can wear wool without a problem. I'm using Blue Sky Alpaca's Suri Merino, and it's really, really, really, really soft. I haven't used this before, but MJ has been knitting this incredible cowl with it, so I knew that it was a good choice. The pattern is Darkside Cowl by Sarah Fama, and I'm finally at the point where I can see the pattern in my cowl. Hopefully, this will help with my inability to follow the directions. The pattern repeats shift ever two rows, and I keep NOT shifting with them. Fortunately, since each pattern row is knit twice in a row, I've caught the errors without any ripping. This is meant to be quick, after all!

In other knitting news, Wendy Bernhard was at Renaissance Yarns yesterday, signing copies of her new book Custom Knits. I love the book (there are two patterns that I want to start immediately, and several others that I want to start eventually), and Wendy was really nice. You know, like NORMAL nice. She brought along some beautiful samples, including one of the sweaters on my must-knit-list. I was really glad that I didn't have to drive all the way to North Seattle to meet her.