I recently finished knitting myself another cowl. After the Honey Cowl marathon of the last few years I thought I should branch out and try a new pattern! I am not the most confident knitter but really want to try and improve my knitting abilities so have started a little yarn stash (I promise it will not take over the house…) and am challenging myself with new patterns and yarns.
The pattern I decided to tackle next was the Big Herringbone Cowl pattern from The Purl Bee. The herringbone stitch was fun to do and easy to pick up and this cowl ended up being nice and squishy and bulky. It did take me a few sittings to get used to using the chunky 12mm needles but once I was in a groove the cowl was a really fast knit.
The yarn I used was Milla Mia Naturally Soft Aran in Ochre colourway. I purchased it on a whim when I was stocking up on needles one day because I had a 20% discount voucher to use and wanted to make the most of it. I have used Milla Mia yarn before and knew that the quality would be great – soft and not scratchy. I really love it though, the finished cowl is super snug and keeps me so warm on a cold day.
This cowl is definitely not free of mistakes, there are a few spots that have messy stitches or little holes that I strategically place underneath folds when I wear it. I was *this close* to unpicking the whole thing and starting again after I had blocked it because the mistakes were annoying me so much but decided I would keep it as is and knit another one sometime without any mistakes! I found the herringbone stitch really difficult to rectify mistakes as I went, but I’m sure one day it will click and I’ll be able to fix up my mistakes as I go along. That’s the great thing about a cowl though, you can easily wrap and tuck to hide any messy spots before wearing!
My next knitting project is a 3-Colour Cashmere Cowl…I was about 1/3 of the way through and then the little boys landed on my knitting bag when they were jumping off the couch and snapped one of my needles so I am impatiently waiting for a replacement to arrive in the mail!
