I’m literally stitches away from finishing my Stripes pullover, but will miss the chance to take a picture of it in time for this post. I’ll show it to you next week instead. It took a bit longer because I had to rip back one sleeve – there was a join in the yarn that made the gradation change too quickly. Once the second sleeve was knitted, that became obvious and (of course) I wanted them to match, so I frogged it back.

Since I’ve been knitting in the kitchen, I cast on something a little more interesting. This is a lace scarf designed by Sarah Hattan in Rowan Pure Wool 4ply. It was the Rowan subscribers’ gift in (gah!) 2009/2010. Yes, I’ve had it in my stash all that time.

This was a gift for buying an annual subscription to the magazine. It came with 6 balls of yarn and two patterns – there was enough yarn to make either one. Incredibly, there aren’t any pictures of this online. Give me a minute…..

Here’s the pattern card that came with the yarn. MIne is a bit faded:

I’m making the one on the right, which is supposed to be joined in a circle, like a huge cowl. That didn’t seem very practical, so I worked 6 rows of garter stitch instead of doing a provisional cast-on. I’ll do 6 rows of garter stitch at the other end, making it a big scarf instead. You’re supposed to work 2 stitches in garter at either edge, but I changed that to 3 – a two-stitch border always looks a bit lonely to me.

Why did I have this stashed for so long? Well, I wasn’t sure I wanted a big scarf or cowl. I’d thought the wool would make a nice little sweater, but it really isn’t enough yardage for that and the colour (Eau-de-Nil) is an odd grey-blue that is pretty but hard to match with anything. I decided it was time to just knit it up and be done with it.

I like the pattern and it’s pretty easy knitting – just not tv knitting. That’s the second ball of yarn, so it will be pretty long when it’s done, probably similar dimensions to my Earth Stripe Wrap (but with fewer ends to work in! Ha!)

I’ve had a few other Rowan subscribers’ gifts. This was what I did with the six balls of Rowan Denim – I made a bag, just in not the pattern that was included. I still have the yarn gift for the Judy beret. (That’s a Ravelry link.) It’s bright pink. Maybe I should knit that up next.