Kidsilk Cowl

Happy New Year!

Did you do anything fun to bring in the new year? Ours was pretty low key. We celebrated the New Year for the East coast time zone with Naomi, and then the real deal at midnight Colorado time for us big kids. We've had some snow and pretty cold weather over the Christmas and New Year, so it was nice to stay huddled indoors with some of my loved ones.

All this huddling indoors has resulted in crafty goodies to share! I was able to start and finish a lovely cowl in Rowan kidsilk haze. This is extremely light and airy, and  super soft to the touch.



It was my Mum who had spotted something similar in a local yarn store, when she was visiting with us over the holidays. I was trying to complete while she was here, but was just a bit too slow, so it will be going out in the mail to her this weekend.



I have kidsilk haze in my stash, and Mum selected the solid purple. I'd also recently picked up some seed beads that were a perfect complement to the yarn and decided it might add a nice touch to randomly knit those into the cowl - a touch of sparkle.  The result is subtle, but I think it was worth the effort. (Man, those beads are teeny tiny... it took me a couple of evenings to get them all threaded before knitting could commence).






Here's my little knitwear model, modeling the end result for me. Do you love the forced grin she is also modeling :)))


The knit is really straightforward, only takes one ball of kidsilk haze and works up relatively quickly.  Here are the details:

• Pattern:  Welted Cowl by Jane Richmond (a free Ravelry download)
• Yarn:  Rowan kidsilk haze, 1 skein/229 yards
• Needle:  US size 6 circular needle (cowl is knit in the round)
• Mods:  Added the seed beads

***Edited to add details of the seed beads***

I used sized 15 seed beads for the cowl.  I don't have the number of the seed beads used, but to gauge quantity, this is a 2-inch-tall pot of the beads and you can see that there are still some left.  To start, I threaded all the beads onto the yarn  using a wire loop made out of very fine wire (see this site for a picture of how to do this).  I'd move the beads down the yarn as I was knitting and randomly add them in:  Knitting somewhere between 5" to 10" of the yarn and then adding in a bead.***


Wishing you good health and much happiness for the year ahead,
Sam xxx