Great Prismatic Cowl from Spinnin' Yarns--Done!

It's done!

The blocking took the bumpy texture down a notch or two, perfect to my liking.  It's still on the casual side, but the edges feel a bit neater now. 

It's more decorative than cozy, but with all those colors in play I'm fine with that.

Thanks for a mind- and skill-expanding knitting experience, Spinnin' Yarns!

Next, we travel to Salt Lake City Utah and visit a handful of great shops in ski country!

Great Prismatic Cowl from Spinnin' Yarns--Day 5

The penultimate step...

This was a very long bind off.  

A can’t finish it all in one day my fingers are cramping long bind off. Made even longer by the fact that I chose to use my favorite bind off, Jenny’s Surprisingly Stretchy Bind Off, so each of the nearly 300 stitches had to be worked through three separate steps.  A total of 834 steps, by my count.

I’m always impatient with bind-offs.  I never like the last step of anything.  I don’t mind putting wash in the washing machine or transferring it to the dryer, but I loathe taking it out of the dryer and folding it.  I don’t mind loading the dishwasher (too much) but find it a much more unpleasant task to unload it.  I love to make plans but find the execution wearisome.  I love Mondays but am often frustrated by the unsatisfying closure of a Friday where I didn’t get everything done.  I’m forever leaving cabinet doors open, things on the table, items out instead of neatly put away.  A friend believes this is a peculiar form of ADHD, but I think this is just the unique character of ALLIE.

On the upside, one of my frustrations with bind-offs is that they frequently don’t quite match the cast-on, either in appearance or tension.  Since the one continuous bind-off means it’s all bind-off, that’s not an issue here—everything matches.  I have to admit, that’s nice.

I find the cowl a bit rustic and bumpy at the moment, but it hasn’t been blocked, so that’s not a fair assessment.  There’s the final step to go.  

This could be one last step I really do enjoy.  Stay tuned.

Great Prismatic Cowl from Spinnin' Yarns--Day 4

The thing about a project with all one edge…is that it never stops.  

I hadn’t realized the little burst of achievement that an end of a row gives me.  Big believer in mini-goals that I am, I suppose rows represent mileposts, small “got it done” boxes to tick off in the long process that is knitting any project.  

I’m missing those here.

Yes, there’s a lone stitch marker to signify the beginning of each “round” (which is actually two rounds given the whole one-edge-two-sides thing), but it doesn’t seem to do it for me.  Each time I reach the marker, I don’t feel accomplishment. I only feel how many more rounds there are to go.

I find myself wishing I had gone for the Great Prismatic colorway with all those rainbow color changes.  The blue-to-green-and-back-again is pretty, and much better suited to my wardrobe, but it isn’t as exciting.  Soothing, I suppose, but that’s not the same thing, is it?  Besides, the effort of the linen stitch seems to negate any solace.

Even with my mix of feelings about this project, the bottom line is that it’s still too early to tell.  How a project looks on the needles is only a hint of how it might look and feel once finished and blocked.  I’ve learned, over and over, that it is by no means the complete picture.  Knitting is about faith in the creative process.  I have faith that the challenges of this project will pay off in a lovely accessory.  

And that’s what keeps me knitting.