Snowdrift Infinity Cowl

Today is all about the Snowdrift Infinity Cowl.  I loved the yarn and pattern.

I went to a yarn store a couple of weeks ago and found some Shibui Knits Dune in Bordeaux on sale.  I grabbed a couple of skeins of it.   The yarn has been discontinued, which is a shame.  I really like this yarn.  It is so soft.  It 50% Baby Alpaca/25% Baby Camel/25% Silk.  I had read some reviews that it splits very easily.  I do agree with this, but I would use it again in spite of that.

I came home, and started looking for a pattern for it.  I knew I probably wanted to make a cowl out of it.  I figured I had enough yarn, and thought it would be very warm.  I live in Colorado, so I can always use more winter wear.  I stumbled upon the Snowdrift Infinity Cowl by Kalurah Hudson, which is a free pattern as of posting this.  I decided this is the pattern I wanted to use.  It calls for Aran weight yarn, and the Shibui is DK.

It took some experimenting for me to get the gauge I wanted with such lighter weight yarn.  The pattern uses US 11 and US 15 needles.  I kept trying different sizes until I settled on US 7 and US 9.  The pattern has four sizes difference between the smallest and largest needles.  I tried this, but never like my results, so I settle on a two size difference.  I also thought I might need to add a bit of width to make it come out to a similar size.  I only upped if from 51 pattern stitches to 55 cast on.  Since the yarn had some silk, I decided wood needles were the way to go.  I also like to use straight needles when knitting a small width.   So, my Lykke needles where my choice.  This is knitted like a scarf, not in the round to form the cowl.  Once binding off, you sew the ends together.  I don't love how the ends come together, but it's easily hidden.

 

 

The pattern was quick to memorize.  I never needed to reference the pattern after a couple of rows.  The difficult part of the pattern is it's hard to correct an error if you are a few rows past it.  Since the stitches crisscross, you can't just easily drop one stitch down a few rows.  I had this issue where I could see the yarn was badly split.  I fixed most, but some are still in there.  They are not easily seen so I could live with it.  I love the end product.  The yarn with the stitch pattern made it so soft, squishy, and warm.

Thank you for stopping by!