fo: holding hands, feeding ducks cowl

My entire Halloween weekend was, unfortunately, pretty unremarkable. I had other things that needed to get prioritized over dressing up and acting like an idiot (which is a shame, because that is my favourite). I did, however, cast on and cast off for something new.

IT’S AN UGLY TUBE!

Just kidding. Okay, well – it is a tube. But it’s not anywhere near as boring as it looks in that picture. If you arrange it right, it can look like this:

Or like this.

Which I think is much, much nicer. This cowl is based on the stitch pattern from the Holding Hands, Feeding Ducks scarf, one of those patterns that I’ve always loved but never found time to knit. It’s also dead easy to turn into a cowl, and leaves a fabric that’s really springy and dense, but doesn’t curl (even though it looks very stockinette-y).

Pattern: Cowl modified from Holding Hands, Feeding Ducks
Yarn: Nearly a skein of Lorna’s Laces Shepherd Worsted, in Pewter.
Needles: 5.5mm

Directions: The pattern calls for a multiple of 4 sts plus one, so I cast on 41 stitches using the long-tail cast-on and leaving a VERY long tail, on purpose. This made my scarf about 8″ wide, unblocked.

Then I worked in the star stitch pattern established in HH,FD for 25 inches, give or take. I was going for a big, floppy cowl, not a nice, tight neckwarmer. If you wanted to make one of those, though, you could just knit for fewer inches.

Then, I stopped (ending on a knit row), but did not bind off – I left my work on a holder. Using the tail from my cast on, I picked up 41 sitches at the cast-on edge of my work, and then I believe I had to knit a row so that the working yarn was on the same side of the work when I held them both together. Finally, using the tail from my cast-on (but you could also break the working yarn if your tail wasn’t long enough) I grafted the two ends together.

This left me with a big, floppy tube. I blocked it out a little, so that the finished dimensions ended up being closer to 9 inches wide and 23 inches long (11.5 inches with the ends grafted together). It’s so, so squishy, and perfect for throwing on when it’s chilly out, but I don’t want to carry a scarf around indoors all day.

but you gotta be as fly as me, gotta know how to rock your stuff

IMG_7906, originally uploaded by pirateygoodness.

This would be the stack of notes I need to learn for my latest exam, coming up this week. I’ve been a little on-and-off about knitting while I study, despite the fact that knitting really really helped back in November, when I was working on that sweater I love for NaKniSweMo. But I think a lot of that has been because, when exams roll around, I don’t always have a project that I’m in love with. That, apparently is the trick.

I’ve had six skeins of Lorna’s Laces Worsted sitting in my stash for a few months now, waiting for the Holy Grail of Sweater Patterns. I thought maybe that pattern was going to be Francis, or this button-sleeve raglan (without the dorky Harry Potter lettering), but then I saw elevenstitches’ cardigan adaptation of Owls, and thought to myself, “. . .aha.”

A few swatches and a lot of math later, and I think I have something to help me destress while I’m studying this time around.

Song of the Entry: Lil’ Wayne f. Juelz Santana and Starr – Rockstar (Listen)

pattern: cable-and-bobble coffee press cozy

Moved over from the now-abandoned See Jane Knit, now in handy .pdf form!

If there is one thing I need on a daily basis, aside from the basics like oxygen and food, it’s probably fresh, hot coffee. Which, if you’re making it using a French press, can be a fairly time-sensitive operation. That’s why I ended up designing this: it’s a cozy for your coffee press (or tea press, or juice press, or whatever you want to use one of them for) to keep your coffee hot just a little bit longer for you to enjoy at your leisure.

Ravelry Pattern Page | | PDF Download!