After a week of wearing my new Nevermore cowl (Ravelry link), I finally made myself block it and take peectures (hastily).
It’s my favorite piece of colorwork I’ve done thus far because I managed to make it so neat. There was serious danger of the stripes puckering because that always happens when I change colors at regular intervals. Being aware of the risk, I took care to maintain proper tension on the waiting yarn. It worked out reasonably well even if the stripes don’t sit perfectly flat.
I’m especially proud of how well I did with the bird. In colorwork it’s always a challenge when there’s a large expanse (of more than 5 stitches) where one color is carried behind. It’s a challenge to keep the tension of the carried yarn just right – too tight and the pattern will pucker, too loose and the stitches before the color change will be too loose. You can’t twist the yarns together more than once in one spot or else that place will show as a line. I managed the bird without any of these problems.
I used Trekking Hand Art Flamé from Zitron (the black-purple variegated yarn) and Heritage Solids from Cascade Yarns. It’s so cool that out of those two skeins of fingering weight yarn, I got this nice-sized cowl and a scarf (the Locale I blogged about yesterday). I’d call that good value for money.
Cowls don’t work in really cold weather, but lucky for me, those promise to be behind us. I like the simplicity of wearing this garment, and the ease. I’ve never been aware of a constant need to fiddle with my scarf or shawl to check that it’s properly in place, until I started wearing this. Yes, cowls will definitely have a place in my wardrobe in the future.
Bamboo number 1 knits! 