Happy May Day to you!

I’ve enjoyed making this cowl designed by Vickie Howell, which is featured in the book above. There’s nothing else I want to make from it but that’s the beauty of borrowing a library book; they’re free so there’s no feeling of obligation to get your money’s worth.

I feel a little as if my custard brain should have been able to figure how to make it all in one, with no sewing up, but I found making the ribbed border fiddly when slip stitching into the end of the main piece as I went. Having it dangling from the main body piece was just plain annoying too. So I went back to the instruction to make three separate pieces and sew them together. Whip stitching (we call this oversewing don’t we?) was novel as I usually choose to crochet everything together. Running out of yarn both times, halfway through the process wasn’t much fun. Isn’t there some useful tip about needing three times as much crochet yarn as you measure to the end of a row? Well, I figured sewing would take roughly double the quantity. Wrong!
To begin you crochet a fairly narrow v stitch body piece. Mine is 6″, each ribbed border piece is 2″ which adds up correctly to a  10″ cowl, though my swift tension check did not seem to correlate to the pattern at all. I’d anticipated needing to up-size my crochet hook so I’d already chosen to use a 6m, rather than 5.5mm and its worked out well, luckily. I probably need to learn to correctly check my tension, but when its 4.5 rows and 14 stitches etc it just seems far harder work to check than a pattern which states 10 x 10 = something easy like 10.

V Stitching into the front loops gives a pleasing texture when the piece is turned on its side. I like this pattern a lot, even with the slow putting together end stage and the cowl looks good on, only its not for me. I’m giving it to my friend as another birthday present, she’s going to wear in when she’s on her bike. It should keep her warm as the cowl is good and thick. I used the Red Heart Super Saver Worsted / Aran (Tea Leaf shade) which was sent to me from the USA for my Left Handed Crochet photographs for Red Heart Yarns blog. I thought this was a good use of some of the yarn. Now I’m on the look out for a really nicely coloured, soft wool blend Aran so I can make myself a Cozy Cowl too.

I’ve just had a sip of BrewDog’s ShipWreck beer which is 13.8%, matured in Speyside and Islay whisky casks, made with smoked agave. My lips and throat feel puckered from the inside out! I’m sticking with their IPA: Ace of Simcoe.

Just got this notification – 500 posts! How did that happen? That’s a lot of crochet isn’t it?!!