Christmas knits: Beth's cowl

Now that Christmas is over and most of my Christmas knits have been distributed, I'm going to blog about them.  The first will be the cowl I gave Ricky's mom Beth.  Beth's had a hard few months, and she's always been very sweet to me, so I wanted to make her a nice hand knit this year.  And, since time was of the essence, I went with a cowl.

My friend (and new mom!) Crystal of Domesticated Human recently published a cowl pattern she made for a gift using one skein of Malabrigo.  I love Malabrigo merino worsted for it's soft squishiness, and thought that Beth would as well.  I had a skein of a light purple -- I thought I'd like the color when I purchased it, but no such luck -- that I decided to use, since it's a color she'd enjoy.

Knitting this up was a breeze.  It only took a few days of knitting on the train, and I was finished.  I decided to go up a needle size to make the drape looser and also because Beth is taller and her features are larger than Crystals.  (she's like 5'10")  I'm glad I did, since it did make it a lot looser.  I loved how the dropped stitches looked, and it made for an interesting pattern.


I modeled it by the ocean to take photos for ravelry and also here.  It was definitely warm and soft, so I'm glad I picked this yarn for the gift.  I gave it to her yesterday, and she LOVED it.  So much.  Ricky was even touching it and she joked with him not to, in case it got damaged (note:  it won't, it's quite sturdy).  I'm glad I made it for her, since she definitely appreciated it and will get a lot of use out of it.