It’s Sunday and I’ve got no spinning at all to share with you because my back has been acting up this week. For now spinning is out. I hope to get back to it soon.
I just realized that I haven’t blogged about another new pattern of mine, so I’ll tell you about that instead. Suzanne is an aran weight reversible cable and garter cowl (or scarf). It came out of a request from my mother-in-law for a very long red cowl with “cables and stuff” and when I finally got around to making something this is what happened:
I used three 100g skeins of James C. Brett Aztec (90% acrylic, 10% alpaca).
When it came time to join it I had the idea of doing something new to me. I knit a strip of garter stitch perpendicular to the original direction of knitting, joining both the live stitches and the stitches from a provisional cast on. Then I found a couple of sets of buttons to decorate this new strip of knitting. It’s not really a button band, it’s an opportunity to dress up the cowl with two different sets of buttons for two looks.
Of course you can add knitting on to the ends and do a real button band if you want. And if you want less trouble, you don’t even have to join it up if you’re making a scarf.
For the second cowl I made a much smaller cowl and grafted it closed. I’m a little sad that this sample is living at my LYS for the moment because it’s lovely squishy merino and we’re having some dreadful weather. It used three 50g skeins of Diamond Luxury Collection Fine Merino Superwash Aran. The yarn may have a long name, but at least the name tells you what it is!
You can find Suzanne on Ravelry for $4USD: 
