Cozy Winter Cowl

It's been a long time since I picked up knitting needles. The last thing I knit was a baby kimono for a girlfriend's baby shower.  That baby girl is now 8!

I probably wouldn't have picked up my knitting needles if not for the fact that we got some snow.   It's been weird seeing green grass for the last 3 months.  Of course the kids were so happy to see snow.  Even if it melted within 2 days (no no no!!), we were able to make a snowman and go sledding.

There's nothing like snowy weather to get me thinking of warm and woolly scarves.  So I decided to go to Michaels and pick up some yarn.  I bought some Lion Brand Wool-Ease Thick & Quick (Grey Marble) after seeing the Katy Cowl pattern on Ravelry.

Since I can't control myself, I also bought these (and some more)

The cowl was very easy to knit.  However, in the 8 years that I haven't been knitting, there has been a lot of new stuff (for me) on youtube.  I learned how to do a provisional cast-on by iKnits.  Although the Katy Cowl pattern says to do a standard cast on, one Ravelry member said she did a provisional cast on.  I had no idea what that meant, but it sounded like she knew what she was talking about.  I googled it and realized again, how cool the internet is for crafters.   A provisional cast on allows you to have live stitches that you can knit from (or sew up) seamlessly.  The key word here is seamless! 

I used 10mm (size 15) needles as per the pattern but the yarn label suggested 9mm (size 13).   Since I usually ignore gauge (bad bad bad),  I was hoping it wouldn't be a problem since this was a cowl.

It was truly an easy knit but as I was measuring, I only measured for length.   It turns out that following the pattern without checking gauge made my cowl 1.5" wider.

I forgot to take pics of my grafting but trust me when I say, it looked fantastic!  Only I could tell where I joined the two ends thanks to this handy video:  how to do a Kitchener Stitch for garter stitches. 

Overall, I do still think the cowl turned out nicely.  It took 3 skeins to make and at 6oz/170g per skein, it's a bit heavy in my opinion.  Definitely too heavy for my little model.

I gave this one to my sister who walks everywhere because she lives downtown.  This is what it looked like on me.  Seems like there's so many ways this thing can wrap.

See what I mean?

Onto my next project!