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Honey Cowl

Staying true to my commitment that should I buy new yarn I must use it, another project was found and completed.

The newly purchased Ella Rae, Lace Merino yarn that is DK weight needed to be used.  There was enough yardage to make a nice sized cowl, but I wanted to be sure to use a pattern designed specifically for this relatively light weight yarn.  A quick search turned up this pattern, Honey Cowl by Madelinetosh.  Remarkably I knit the pattern using the sized needles recommended and followed the design as written.   (This is such a rarity that I have to stop and congratulate myself.)

The Ella Rae yarn is that lovely variegated type that is taken full advantage of by this pattern.  It uses a slip stitch honeycomb combination of four rows repeats.  Whenever a stitch is slipped the colour of the yarn from the previous row remains.  Then a stitch is purled which mixes colours.  The blending of this subtly variegated yarn yielded a final product that is beautiful, IMHO.


I also used a new cast-on technique, the cable cast-on.  It was surprisingly simple to do and created a dramatically improved look to my usual knitted cast on.  The new cast-on and my old cast-off were supposed to look similar.  You can check it out below for yourself.



At any rate, this will be a gift for someone who needs a variety of neck wear to keep warm, so the pictures are close-ups to help keep the suspense.

So if you have one hank, skein or ball of DK weight yarn, want to make a complicated looking end product that isn't complicated, give this Honey Cowl a try.  And the nice thing about it is it can be completed in just a few hours.  This ticks off all my boxes for a nice gift idea; perhaps it will for you too.
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