Bloom Striped cowl

I finally finished the socks. I did neglect to get a picture of puppy girl wearing them, but she wore them for a day and a half before taking them off and shoving them behind the throw pillow on the couch. This is a normal repository of socks in my house and I am convinced that both girls consider this to be part of their hamper. I TRY to do the natural consequence thing and not wash things that aren't in the hamper, but honestly they either have too many socks or their tolerance for socks shoved behind cushions of the couch is higher than mine. Perhaps both.

I decided to compromise and give myself a week, this week, to work on an alternate project before starting the second pair of socks. I mentioned a while ago that my LYS had a sale and when I went everyone was just gushing about the Bloom striped cowl. I bought two skeins to make it with and then laid out all my other purples to see if maybe one of them didn't go better. Then this weekend, I even dug out a burgundy and a baby blue. In the end I decided to go with not the silky wool I bought, but a darker purple. That um is called.... um.... I think I may have lost the ball band. Isn't that terrible? I do keep the ball bands--but I always get into trouble when the yarn comes in a skein and I decide I need to wind it RIGHT NOW!

I did a search of the yarn cabinet and did come up with the tag. The yarn is Malabrigo Silky merino.

And I quite like how it is turning out.

I will say this, whenever a pattern says cast on, I use a knitted cast on. I like it, I like how it looks. Sometimes I'll do a cable cast on--again easy peasy and looks nice. However, sometimes a pattern will specify and I truly try to believe that the pattern designer is not just a control freak who wants me use her favorite cast on and actually think there is a reason. So I use the cast on specified. That said--man I hate me some long tail cast on.