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Out of the Curl

The Jeweled cowl although simple, in theory, does have a lace element.  And of course that lace element tripped me up the first time around.  To fix the problem the work needed to be removed from the needles and when that happened I found that it wasn't as long as I wanted it to be.  So, the entire first attempt was frogged and I started over.

Now you might be thinking to yourself, how is it that the size of the cowl wasn't better determined, a valid question.   Although my yarn is a lace weight like that recommended by the designer, I wanted a fabric with a closer weave than the one the pattern made.  So instead of using size 8 or 5 mm needles, I am using size 5 or 3.75 mm needles which means extra stitches needed to be added to get the length necessary, 50 extra stitches to be exact.  In order to keep the proportion of beads to scale with the extra stitches and more beads worked in those stitches had to be used.  (Yes, my basic high school algebra came in handy.)  And then finally as more stitches are beaded an executive decision had to be made about how to s-t-r-e-t-c-h the beads because I am not interested in purchasing more.  So I am working 3 rows with beads and then 2 without.  Hopefully I have accurately calculated the count of beads purchased and beads needed.  Time will tell.

In the meantime here's what I have so far, well out of the curl.  First a photo of how it looks on while still on the needles and a second close up of the lace and beading section.

The beaded section is 1/8 of the length of the cowl so it can be wrapped twice around the neck.

A glimpse of the look of the beads on once the cowl is complete
The general look of this makes me very happy.  This cowl is being made with another dark yarn and I have to wonder about my inability to recognize knitting with dark yarn when days are so short is not a good idea.  Thank goodness for good task lights, but my next project needs to be light in colour.


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