Pine Bough Cowl # 2

And I am back from holidays... For now anyway!

A few days away in Nice, where the sun has not been shining that much actually... But no matter I am not here to talk vacation, am I?

postcard from the Riviera!

I took my Pine Bough Cowl project with me to work on while on the road, aiming to finish it by the time I got back to the UK. And I guess I would have, if I hadn’t had so many obstacles in my way! It has been quite the trial of patience, let me you...

First, and mainly, my needle broke!

It started to split on my train ride to the airport. Not cool! I was counting on that journey to do a fair bit of the knitting... I fixed the problem à la MacGyver when I got to Nice, and got my hands on some thermal retractable sheath (got that wee trick from an old musician flatmate of mine who used to repair his jacks and cables with this stuff), and it did the trick until one of the needle's end completely detached! Even less cool!!! That was time for some proper surgery. Cut, snip, re-sheath, I got myself a needle that just about last me until I got back to my house. When I switched needles, I saw that the other end was starting to split as well... Oh dear, it was well overdue time to be reunited with all my knitting equipment... 

And if this wasn't enough, I also at times didn’t carry enough yarn when taking the project to knit on the go...

But, eventually, I did complete that God forsaken cowl! (Sorry Dianna, I did enjoy knitting your design, and I do love to wear it now, but quite honestly I am glad I am done with it and its lot of troubles...) And with these few drawbacks I did so by the end of the month too, my own self inflicted schedule! So all in all, success!!!

Shaun modelling the Pine Bough Cowl

Time to move on to other knits now...

Pine Bough Cowl

Sometimes, it is good to knit someone else’s design. Especially so when that someone else is a friend who is trying to build a career and a living out of knitting. And who is crazy talented, providing a beautiful and original fair isle pattern!

When my friend Dianna Potter released this pattern, I immediately adored it! And I set myself to work on this project, quick.

A funny thing happened when I went to buy the wool. I have over the past few months used a lot of cold colours in my projects, a lot of blues and greens and greys. So for this one I just wanted some warmer tones, some yellows and oranges with a nice shade of fuchsia or brown for contrast. I spent an hour in the shop, choosing the colours for my “sweater for the neck”, as Dianna calls it. And as you can tell from the picture below, I didn’t buy any of the tones I had in mind, but some green and blue yarns! Unbelievable! What had happened there? Where and how did I lose track of my original plan?

And then a day or two later, I realise that I have lost one of the blue yarns. Dilemma! Do I get another ball of blue, risking ending up with wool from different dye lots?  Or... Or!!! Do I choose a second contrast colour?...

Aaaah, I think this last idea is a good one, and that the white is quite matching with the main green and make the contrast blue stand out a little more too. No?

I am now halfway through this knit, and I’m loving it. However I’m keeping the last 50% for next week when I’ll be flying to France for a few days; it will make a perfect holiday project. Expect to see the end result at the end of the month!

Find the free pattern for the cowl here, and also check out Dianna’s designer’s profile on Ravelry or find her on the Paper Tiger blog (from my blog roll on the right of your screen).