with an H Jake - not a W

who knew that a little cowl could cause such a stir...

It started when I said hey beastie can you please find me the Hoarfrost pattern by Anne Hanson of KnitSpot. It was an "OMG Mom" moment accompanied with Coke shooting from his nose! Which led to the discussion of the H versus the W. This is the definition from the Arctic Climatology and Meteorology site. If you are looking for the "W" variation of the word - contact your nearest 16 year old male and ask - I'm sure they'll be happy to help you - I suggest bringing paper towels!

So then I had a this really great cone from ColourMart that I've been wanting to give a try and thought this would be perfect. It is a light fingering weight 5%cashmere/10%Silk/12%Viscose/73% Merino in a color called Tierra Tweed. Now the stir was because somehow my package got the magical mystery tour of the post office and took about 6 weeks to arrive - but it got here! YeAh! But I must admit that it wasn't looking really swanky - actually it looked kindda like string like lace weight string. But I have learned over time to not discount the ColourMart yarn on first glance!

Since my fiber was a little lite for the pattern I went up a needle size to a US 4 and made the larger size cowl. I just loved that lace stitch and it was totally new to me so I bought the pattern more to learn the lace stitch than actually to knit the cowl. Then low and behold as I was starting to knit my cowl my copy of knit.sock.love arrived, and there on page 67 was the same lace pattern!

So skip forward a 36 hours, 220 yards and I'm done knitting (yes I know I'm a little fast - but let's not tell my husband). Toddle over to the sink full of really hot water and a couple of squirts of Dawn Dishwashing Detergent and throw it in. Yikes that was one ugly colored sink of water. So rinsed and did it again. And again. And finally finished it off by giving it a good soak in some Pantene hair conditioner for dry hair. Another rinse and a trip to the salad spinner. Then finally I pinned it out to the bed to dry - which took about the same amount of time as watching Bucky and the Badgers get their butts kicked in the Rose Bowl and clean up the mess that was created by the men folk eating snacks in the kitchen.

It bloomed nicely and I was really happy about the subtle tweed effect. The color is a light brown with flecks of color - the silk and viscose give it a nice sheen and contribute to the drape the merino and cashmere are soft as usual.

As to all those who asked about swatching and shrinkage and stitch counts - gotta tell you folks my philosophy is if it doesn't work for the person intended then the cosmos was telling you to send it to someone who really needed it - which is what I did!