FO Friday - Burberry Cowl

The Burberry Cowl I made for myself is done and I love it!  It's almost too warm to wear it right now - but it will be perfect once it starts snowing (which will be soon).  The yarn is amazing (details in a previous post).

This is the second time I've made this cowl - the first one went to my mother-in-law.  It's a great pattern and it's fast because you use chunky yarn.

I was talking to someone in my LYS the other day who said she's been wanting to make this cowl but was intimidated by the cables.  I can't express how easy cables are - especially these ones!  If you have never knit cables and don't believe me, just find a YouTube video on how to do them.  Super simple and they look great!

I could get used to this knitting for myself stuff :)

Head over to Tami's Amis to see what others have finished recently!


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WiP Wednesday - Something for Me!

As I mentioned in a previous post, I made one 'impulse' buy at Knit City.  I could not resist the chunky, pink, amazingly soft, 100% baby alpaca yarn by Jeanette Sloan.

To justify my purchase, I made myself come up with a project on the spot before I handed over my payment.  My project of choice was the Burberry Inspired Cowl Neck Scarf.  I rarely knit anything for myself (one of my goals is to do more of this, though!) and the fact that I'd be using the yarn for something I'd keep took away some of the guilt from the impulse buy that I promised myself I would not do.

Here it is in the making...will feature it in an FO Friday post soon!

On another note, I'm hoping to start some Christmas knitting now that my 7000 word paper for school is finished!  I'm hoping to start off with a project for my niece (I'm thinking Thirsty Rose but will ask her as she is quite the independent fashionista even at the age of 3) and nephew (I'm thinking Gramps for him) because they are the most fun to knit for!  Then I'll see if I have time to work my way through any projects for the rest of my family.  

Click the image below to head over to Tami's Amis to see what everyone else has on their needles!

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WiP Wednesday - Bandana Cowl

My WiP this week is a Bandana Cowl.

I'm using the yarn Nashua Ivy - it's a sage green color with little bits of silver in it.  It's really soft and not itchy at all!

I think I'm going to give this to a friend as a birthday gift.  If it turns out well, I'll probably end up making more as gifts -- it's a great pattern, an easy and quick knit, and I think my friends would get a lot of use out of a piece like this!

Because of the yarn and needles I used, it's a bit of a looser knit than the original pattern.

It's almost done in these pictures...I'll post the final result this Friday!  As you can see in the final picture, I made some sort of mistake.  I didn't rip back though because I figure you won't be able to see it when it's being worn.

Oops!

Now head on over to Tami's Amis and see what everyone else is working on!

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WiP Wednesday....Already?!?

Sooo, as I was sitting in my evening class last night, I was reminding myself to take some pictures and prep my blog post (as I actually have a new WiP to share this week!).  I even stopped on my way home from class and bought another ball of yarn for my project.  I got home and proceeded to fall asleep on the couch, turned off my alarm when it went off early this morning, heard my husbands alarm upstairs and tried to ignore it...and then FINALLY got up when I heard my cat working on a hairball (which made me spring up from the couch and sprint to him to try to get him onto the laminate floors but OF COURSE he puked on the small and only carpet in our kitchen.  Why?  WHY?)  So, in order to get to work on time this morning, I had to forgo decent pictures of my WiP and will now have to provide you with the lovely cell phone picture taken on my work desk below.

I started work on an oversize, chunky cowl for my sister-in-law.  Her birthday was back in June and I have been wondering what to get her (lol).  Nothing was quite right...until I saw one of her Pinterest posts (have you been to this site?  Pinterest.com.  I warn you, it is slightly addictive.)  She 'pinned' this gorgeous cowl and I thought "ah!  That's it!"

I'm using Lion Brand Thick and Quick Wool Ease yarn in "wheat".  I'm knitting on US 19 (15 mm) needles.  It's quite meditative to knit this project - the yarn feels quite nice and it's straight knitting (so I can do it while reading my articles for school!).  It's going to be really wide - something similar to this but maybe not quite as wide:

I cast on 80 stitches and will knit until I feel it's to my liking.  Then I will seam it up.  I considered knitting this in the round but I've seen some pictures where people use the seam (inside-out) as part of the fashion, so I decided to keep that an option for my sister-in-law.

I'm hoping to have this finished by the end of this weekend!  There's an FO Friday in my future!

Go and check out everyone else's WiPs over at tamisamis.blogspot.com!

WiP Wednesday - YUM!

Here is my most recent project - and it's not for a baby!  It's a cowl for my future-mother-in-law (for Christmas).  The pattern is the Burberry Inspired Cowl found here or on Ravelry.

The yarn is amazing!!  It's Diamond Luxury Collection Baby Alpaca Sport - nice and soft and so great to knit with!  It sheds a little, the only drawback I've found so far.

I'm liking the way the cowl is looking - I'm just over half-way done.

For this project I had to learn the provisional cast-on and it's also my first time doing cables.  I think they are looking ok so far but there are a couple long threads I'm wondering about - should they be there?

I believe it's the last stitch of the stitches that go on the cable needle.  What I am doing is slipping the stitches to a cable needle (smaller than the needle I'm knitting with) then, when I get to the part where I need to knit those stitches, I slip them back on my knitting needle and knit them.  I'm trying to be conscious of my tension and I even gave them a little 'pull' after I noticed these longer threads.  It didn't seem to help.  So are they unavoidable?  Or am I doing something wrong?

Hop on over to Tami's blog and check out what other people are working on!