Productive Knitting Week: Part 2 - How Now Brown Cowl

It's amazing what difference is made in blocking a knitted item. Above are the before and after (OK, during) the blocking of my cowl that I knit to fill my commute time. 

How Now Brown Cowl was an extremely fast knit. I completed it in about 6 hours of knitting stretched over two days. I guess that is one reason I like using bulky weight yarns. When I got this item off the needles, I tried it on and was a bit dismayed to see that the tip of the cowl rolled under. I assume that this is because my gauge on garter stitch is tighter than my stocking stitch. 

Again, I used blocking wires to block the cowl after soaking it for about 30 minutes. I have two on the front side with one of them at an angle to pull the lower point out and away. The yarn is not in the least bit over stretched, so my hope is that this will stop it from rolling under.

Happy Knitting!

Bandana Cowl

I have gotten so far in the knitting of my Carnaby Skirt, that it no longer fits in my bag that I carry into the city on my commute. This means one of two things: either I don't knit on my commute or I start another project. So I decided on a quick knit by Purl Soho called the Bandana Cowl. I found Purl last week when I was looking for a good pictorial for my blog on short-row knitting. I looked at several of the free, online knitting patterns that they had, copied a couple of them to my hard drive and went on with life.

A week later, I was looking at some postings on Knitting Paradise and noticed this one on the Bandana Cowl and immediately recognized it. To me, that is knitting destiny.

I am somewhat limited on bulky weight yarn at the moment, but I had some left-over Wool of the Andes Bulky from my Chocolate Diamonds Sweater that I knitted last fall. Perfect. I cast on the pattern and am following it as written. There was some discussion on Knitting Paradise regarding converting the project to knitting flat instead of in the round and adding some buttons, but I decided not to mess with the pattern and just go with what was written.

I am about half way and have only knitted for about 3 hours. For me, that will be a REALLY quick project. I may have to get some more bulky yarn.

Happy knitting!