Shrug - no, wait,Cowl!

One of my blogging friends recently opened an Etsy shop to sell some of the product of her spinning. I couldn't resist buying 350 metres of her beautiful Corriedale/alpaca mix. I had in mind a shortish shrug in an open weave pattern.

When the yarn arrived it was so soft and warm to touch I decided on a smoother knit - and selected a simple pattern from Ravelry, One Skein Ruffled Capelet.  I really liked the ruffle on this, and the shape.

The first problem was, I needed to convert the pattern from a chunky to a DK weight. The second problem was that the pattern didn't really do justice to variegation in the wool.

I used a circular needle - knitting back and forth, nor around - in order to get the necessary length to make the frill - 413+ stitches.

It was lovely to knit and, once past the frill, worked up fairly quickly.



I had, however, two doubts. The first was that the capelet form wasn't going to work brilliantly with the variegation. It was great on the frill, but seemed like a bit much over the whole cape.

My second concern was that I hadn't compensated enough for the finer wool and the cape might be a bit short around the bottom. I experimented with inserting gussets on either side.

Then, while knitting with a friend, who commented how good the yarn looked against my plain beige sweater, it occurred to me that I needed to turn it into a cowl, by putting a frill along the other edge.

So off I went - knitting as hard as I could to get to the point where I could see if it worked.

And work it did! I am really delighted with the result. It is so soft and shows off the yarn to advantage. I joined the ends by stitching. Next one I'll do in the round.

But that's for next time.I am away from home at the moment, blogging from my iPad which can't upload photos, so the finish will have to wait!