7700 people can't be wrong

Look what I made!

In hindsight I should have taken some photos with the cowl unfolded, but c'est la vie right?  I made this for Lil Sis, after she bought some yarn to try to knit and gave up because she found it too boring.  I took it off her hands and whipped this up for her.  Just in time for Summer!  ha!

I asked her to model it for me.  She is much cooler than me, look at her awesome tattoo!

Pattern:  Honey Cowl.  I wasn't convinced about this pattern until the very end.  It comes out nice and squishy, but not too stiff.  I made a few errors, like accidentally doing two rows of knit, and messing up the sl st/purl sequence, but I don't think they are noticeable at all.
Needles: 5.00mm circulars. 
Yarn: Moda Vera Pure Wool 8ply.  Softened up quite nicely on washing.
Ravelled here

-Linking with-
Tami's Amis FO Fridays | Fiber Arts Fridays at Wisdom Begins in Wonder | Natural Suburbia for Creative Fridays | I've Made Friday at SusanD1408 Crochet Addict | I ♥ Fridays at Petals to Picots

fo: spiral

My completed Spiral Cowl. 

Photos again courtesy of my wonderful friends Clara (photos 1 and 2) and Louisa (photo 3).  These were taken at the same time as the Blissful Flowers Shawl, but we wandered up the road a bit to Parliament House.

Pattern:  Sprial Cowl.  I don't have a lot to say about this pattern.  It was quite simple, and mindless (you don't even know how crazy it is that I can say knitting is mindless coz you know I never imagined i would be able to coz it was so so hard and now I can do it and it's just so freaky right?  My knitting skillz rulez) just knitting around and around and around (I am still amazed that knitting in the round give you purl on the other side. trippy).  I love the picot edges too.  I didn't add a button, I think I can keep in place if I need to with a brooch or something.
Needle:  4.5mm circulars
Yarn:  Bendigo Woollen Mills Allegro in Wild Inferno.  (left overs from my Thinking of You)
Ravelled here

Check out my other FOs modelled at various Melbourne locations on my blog map.

-Linking with-

Tami's Amis FO Fridays | Fiber Arts Fridays at Wisdom Begins in Wonder | Natural Suburbia for Creative Fridays | I've Made Friday at SusanD1408 Crochet Addict | I ♥ Fridays at Petals to Picots

FO: Cowlishness

So, I wasn't going to buy myself any more yarn this year.  I have enough stashed that, should the inevitable zombie apocalypse happen, I will have enough to keep me hooking for at least two years - and that's really how any crocheter should be measuring their stash.  But I digress.  Last week, I was feeling down and stressed and PMSing big time.  Obviously, some new pretty yarn was the only medicine.  So bought myself a couple of skeins of Lincraft Prism:


ooohhhh aaahhhhhh

Inspired by this, I wanted something quick and mindless for a bit of instant gratification.  And, wah lah, a lovely squishy cowl that adds instant colour and warmth.

I had nothing better to do in the 30c heat than model my new woollen cowl.

Want to make one?  Just get some squishy 10ply yarn with long colour repeats, start with around 57 foundation single crochet (fsc), to get to your desired length and then dc back and forth for your desired width.  I finished with a row of sc and then sc both ends together, with a twist to form a moebius.  Easy peasy.

As an aside, I googled 'cowlishness' and look what I found!  Is't it just lovely?  Knitted, but sometimes that can't be helped :D  I don't think I could pull it off though.

via

Linking up with Tami's Amis FO Fridays, and Fiber Arts Fridays at Wisdom Begins in Wonder.

***CATURDAY PLUG***

I'm trying to start a *thing*.  I don't really know the rules around these things, but because I love The Kitten so much, I always want to share her awesomeness with those around me!  So, every Saturday will be Caturday at My Grandmotherly Ways.  Every Caturday I will post a picture of The Kitten, and maybe some other feline related stuff.  I will add a widget which will allow you to link up with me, so you too may participate in Caturday and show us your furbabies!! Hope to see you back here on Sat.... er... Caturday!!

FO! Granny pride

When Alice from Crochet with Raymond uploaded this pattern for a granny cowl, she entitled her post 'Do you dare to wear a granny square?'.

Her cowl was so lovely so I thought, yes, yes I would so dare. 

The hilarious thing is, I wanted to make mine really close to the colours Alice used.  Obviously my memory is not so good, looking at the colours I came home from Spotlight with! 

Despite the randomness of the colours, I think it works. 

Unblocked it was 142x19cm.  Blocked to 168x20cm.   6mm hook.  Blocking worked so much better than my last cowl project, pure wool certainly likes to be blocked much more than a blend.

Mine is 8 granny squares, and for the border I did a row of dcs (with half trs in the corners of the grannies, as recommended by Alice) and then I did a kinda shell row comprising:  *dc, sk 1 st, 3 tr, sk 1 st* repeat around.

Despite all the *bleeping* ends I had to weave in, I made this baby in 4 days! 

Ravelled here.

Wearing it in different ways...

wrapped thrice around the neck!  A bit neck-bracey but still works.

the hold loop through like you would any old scarf.

And my favourite, just twice around :)

Didn't think this project warranted a million billion pictures, but I still uploaded a bunch to my flickr :)

Yes, I am one of those people who tortures my pet by dressing her up and doing silly things to her.  I'm sure she secretly loves it. 

Cowls cowls cowls!

Cowls!  Cowls!  Cowls!  Cowls!  Cowls!  Cowls!  Cowls!  Cowls!  Cowls!  Cowls!  Cowls!  Cowls!  Cowls!

Cowls are neat-o!  I didn't own any, so I thought to remedy this unfortunate situation.

A girl at my work has been wearing some spiff cowls done in a shell stitch long ways.  Does that make sense?

I couldn't find a pattern to match, so I made one up!  Shell stitch is pretty basic, so any nerd can do it.

The ingredients:
Some yarn.  duh. 
I used 2 skeins of King Cole Riot in "Dude".  Kinda wishing I'd chosen one of the other colourways.  Oh well.


prettyyyy

 You could use any yarn for this cowl, just adjust your hook size accordingly.

I used a 6mm hook,

The method:

Make a chain the desired length of your cowl. OR if you're really clever make a foundation single crochet chain instead.  This is what I did, because it gives you a bit more stretch.  Your chain should be a multiple of 6, plus 3.  Thats the length of the pattern, plus an extra bit to join the pattern together (see the image below). 

I wanted mine so I would get two loops around my head, but not too tight.  Just hold the chain together and test it out.

I was a bit off with my count, but I'm a big fan of fudging to get the result you want :)  If you're getting to the end of your chain and your numbers are off, just fudge it by skipping 1 ch instead of 2 as required so you can join your pattern.

Join your chain with a slip stitch to make a loop. 

Then its just *dc, sk 2 ch, 5tr, sk 2 ch* and repeat from * to * until you come back to where you started from.
Here is a chart of the stitch pattern:



Thanks Wikipedia!

When you get back to where you started, dont turn, but keep doing your shell stitch around and around.  the 5tr go on top of your dcs, and a dc goes in the 3rd tr of the 5 tr. 

My join is not very neat, here is kinda what I did:

Starting in the black, shell stitch around.  The red shows where you'd come back to the beginning.  To continue with the pattern, you will end with a dc, then 5tr into your starting dc.  The green is the next row.

The most important thing, when you finish your first row of shell stitch and are going onto the next row, make sure your work is not twisted.  I learnt this the hard way and had to frog about 4 rows before I realised.

I did about 14 rows, then ended off and did 14 rows on the bottom of the chain, to make the cowl symmetrical. 

I steam blocked my cowl, but it still wanted to curl.  I think it looks spiff anyway :)  It's about 140cm around.  Ravelled here.


Before blocking



Blocking attempt.

And wah-lah!  Very snuggly, stays in place beautifully, unlike a scarf which can flap around all over the place.

I have another (possibly daggy) cowl on the hook now.  I hope to have it finished by the weekend!