Handspun Cowl

Many moons ago, a friend gave me the treasure of a skein of handspun yarn.  She was spinning it at one of our knit nights and I was gushing over the way the batt looked like it was glowing and magical.  When she handed me the finished skein a week or two later, I thought she was just showing it to me.  I was beyond excited when she told me she wanted me to have it!

But then I had a dilemma.  What project could I make that was possibly worthy of this precious skein?  Plus, it had enough color variation that I didn't want to do something that had an overwhelming texture to it - that would compete with the yarn and just be too much.  But I was determined that this skein wouldn't turn into something "too precious" - one that just sits in the stash until the end of time because the "right" project never seems to appear for it.

So I decided to write something specifically for this special skein.  Here's what I came up with - a Handspun Cowl: 

I wore it to my LYS one day and was asked if I had made the "Jeweled Cowl".  "Nope," I told her.  "This was just something I thought of myself."



But since I was considering putting it out as a pattern, when I came home I looked up the Jeweled Cowl on Ravelry.

Copyright: knittimo

Yup, that's pretty close!



I took a look at the pattern, and although we do the mesh slightly differently, it gives the same effect.  And since the pattern for the Jeweled Cowl has already been published and the pattern looks well-written, there's really no reason for me to spend time basically duplicating her design.  So please go and support Sachiko Uemura, and make your own Jeweled Cowl if you have your own precious skein.  Her pattern calls for lace-weight, and mine was done in thick-thin sport-ish, but it's easy to modify your cast on number if you want to use a thicker yarn and not have a wildly longer cowl.

It looks like winter is here to stay, so maybe another cowl is just the thing to take away the chill!