the cowl of happiness

i really wanted to use the yarn my sister brought back from NYC on something special, something i loved & would get a lot of use from, after a little thought i knew i wanted to make a cowl, so set about looking for a pattern, i found loads & found it tricky to choose, i knew how i wanted it to be, but wasn't quite sure how to get what i wanted (if you know what i mean!)

so first up i knitted this pattern, i had high hopes for this one, i loved the cable pattern as i was knitting it, but once finished it was way bigger than i wanted it to be & felt the cables kind of got lost, so not having wasted too much time on it, i frogged it & set about making up my own pattern, having learnt more about what i wanted by this time

i knitted it with a simple rib & then moss stitch pattern for the main part, about half way through i knew this was going to be way to big, so i decreased a few stitches, stopped knitting in the round, & added some button holes, in the hope that it would just tighten the top enough to achieve what i wanted, sadly it didn't & by now i was so determined to get this just right! so inspired by this project, i frogged the yarn again & set about knitting a third pattern

happy days! i'm so pleased i pushed on to get something i was truly happy with & didn't just make do, this turned out just how i wanted, it has a great texture, which works really well with this yarn, it's soft, warm & fits just so, i just pop it on & wrap in round again, i can pull it up over my nose when needs be & it stays there, perfect for the cold winter's weather that has been lingering, now i won't mind so much is spring holds off for a week or two! you can check out the details over on ravelry if you're interested

there a also few more pic's of the cowls that didn't quite make the grade over on flickr