FO: A giant honkin' cowl

During the re-graft shuffle I was doing on my Pinktada, I took a brief break to address the Araucania Liwen I had in my stash:

Back in January, I wrote about this yarn and how I felt kind of sad that I had nothing to do with it. It's pretty enough, but just so thick and thin that the fabric was going to be difficult. I thought the answer was possibly a bulky shrug, and I had a few options. 

I pulled the yarn out of my stash again and began looking at it. It seemed kind of odd, after all, to do such a warm shrug with no sleeves. When I get cold, my arms are the first thing to respond, so maybe it wasn't so smart to make a whole garment that would only be wearable when I could go sleeveless. I guess I could layer it over a long-sleeved tee, but it somehow seemed an awkward prospect. 

So I did what pretty much anyone else would assume to do with the yarn: I started a cowl. 

This is the Mid-December Easy Knit Infinity Scarf by A Crafty House. The pattern's free, and very simple. Although it looks like a straightforward rib in the photo above, it's actually a broken rib that gives a different texture to both sides. I love the versatility of large cowls like this... Most people think to wear them as shown above, but what about as a shawl?

Worn this way, you also get a great stripe of texture across the back:

I love the coloring of the yarn... No pooling, emphasizes the texture of the yarn, and reminds me of seaglass. Or Easter eggs. I loved the yarn in the skein, so this was a great way to retain the handpainted feel of the yarn, which tends to get lost on more complex stitch patterns. Here's a close up:

The pattern calls for a 24", #19 needle, which I happened to have laying around thanks to my mother-in-law, who gifted me with a bunch of large needles on her last visit. I knocked this out in one tv session, and it was a glorious therapy to recover from the frustrations of ripping out the Pinktada graft (woven-in ends and all). Sometimes you just need the satisfaction of finishing something. 

I'd pair this cowl with a white tank or boyfriend tee and black leather pants. For the dissonance. It'd also make a great companion for the plain little cocktail dresses I tend to accumulate. It'd give them some much-needed visual interest. 

There's enough fabric that I can make the front and back both drape without it falling off my shoulders, which is kind of pretty, too: 

- YX

(PS: bulky stuff not your style? How about some socki maki?)