I wasn’t sure how this was going to turn out, as my first plied handspun is definitely a thick-thin yarn. After perusing a bunch of cowl patterns on Ravelry, I settled on something similar to the malabrigo cowl I made a few months ago. I was aiming for a drapey fabric, and figured I’d knit til I ran out of yarn.

I cast on 75 stitches, worked a purl row at some point to counter the roll over, and then knit, knit, knit while catching up with a friend on the other side of the world, listening to This American Life, and even last week’s CraftLit episode. I increased by 9 stitches at a few different points in the middle, worked a decrease row (also 9 st) somewhere, another purl bump row, an increase row, and then at about 14 inches, a purl row close to the bind off. I was worried about getting it over my head, initially, but those fears were totally unfounded. I LOVE this cowl — and not just because it represents my first foray into the spinning side of things. I stayed up an extra hour last night in order to finish this — here’s the token “hold the camera up to the mirror” picture marking my victory:

It’s a good thing you can’t actually see how bleary-eyed I was at this moment — but we all know how certain projects induce a kind of “must…finish…” zombie-like state.

In conclusion: hooray for handspun! (And I will finish that baby sweater by Friday. Really.)