Circus Cowl

Back in Oct, 2012, my local yarn shop (LYS), Brandon Yarn Boutique, had a "yarn tasting."  This yarn tasting was all Cascade Yarn yarns. I had only knitted with this brand once before and was eager to try the others.  They had long tables set up and acrylic square plates set up like a place setting.  Each plate had a different yarn ball on it with a pair of knitting needles (crochet hooks were available, as well) .  This way you can knit or crochet a small swatch to test each yarn.  What a great idea!

I bought a few hanks:

Cascade Yarn Luna Paints (Cotton)

Cascade Yarn Eco Duo (Alpaca/Wool)

Cascade Yarn Heritage (Wool/Nylon)

The project I used Cascade Yarn on before was the Pima Pullover where I used Ultra Pima cotton yarn. Very nice cotton, so soft, not stiff at all.

While at the yarn tasting, I won a door prize!  This is what was in my prize bag:

Cherub DK (Nylon/Acrylic)

Cherub DK (Nylon/Acrylic)

The prize bag had those two skeins of yarn and a pattern for a child's hat.  Cool!

My first project from the yarn tasting yarns, I'm calling Circus Cowl.  I used the first pic above's orange/pink hank of yarn.  It is a crazy mix of colors that I could not resist.  The colors remind me of the circus with all the multicolored flags. 

I decided to knit a cowl that has criss-cross stitches.  I found this free pattern on Ravelry called 3-Hour Cowl.  It came from the blog Malcolm and Marcus.  It was a great project to knit while vegging on the couch watching TV.  It took me a bit longer than 3 hours, but I did make it a bit longer than the pattern.

Here it is done:

It's hard to take a picture so you can have a real appreciation for the vivid colors in this yarn.  It really is fantastic how the colors change when they are very different.

Of course, I have to make a babushka out of it:

It is cozy and the fact that it is cotton, makes it non-itch against the skin.

It is summer-like weather out today, so I won't be wearing it for long, but in the "chill" of the morning, sure, why not.  If my morning tea does not wake me up, then the colors certainly will.

I have promised myself that once this project was finished that I would take the rest of January off of knitting, at a minimum.  Well, I finished this last weekend, Jan 4th and this weekend, I was totally missing picking up my needles while we watched TV.  I'm not sure how long this no-knitting is going to last.