volunteer park cowl

i'm still working away on my sock, my endpaper mitt (well, not really, but i often think of it!) and my friend's b-day gift that i need to finish, but this week, i got a little bee in my bonnet and decided i HAD to make another cowl. like, right now.

cowl mania has set in in blog land, and i couldn't be happier about that. i made one last january, and i love it. i call it my handknit hug, because really, that's what it feels like when you wear it. who wouldn't love that? but i wanted a bigger, slouchier cowl. enter the dolores park cowl, which i've seen popping up all over blogs and ravelry. i was intrigued, but figured i'd make it some other time. i didn't really have the right yarn for it, and plus, well, i had lots of other things going, and it's spring....these excuses worked for about two days, but finally i decided to check out a yarn store that i hadn't been to before in seattle, and they had some malabrigo chunky in stock. i took this as a sign, and promptly bought a pretty, springy green skein. once i had the yarn, i quickly cast on while playing scrabble that evening, and about two and a half hours later, i had my cute new spring accessory. and the cowls win again! it's cute and warm, and i haven't taken it off since i finished.

a word about the yarn. i was a little dubious about trying the malabrigo chunky. i know everyone adores malabrigo, but i'm just not that into the worsted version. pilling is a big deal-breaker for me, and if there's one thing malabrigo worsted is good at, it's pilling. i'm not going to say this chunky version won't pill, but i have hopes (possibly misguided ones) that it won't pill quite as bad, since it is a 3-ply instead of a single. we'll see. it is wonderfully soft though, and for now, that's all that matters to me.


i took a little stroll yesterday to volunteer park, wearing my new cowl, so i'm dubbing this my volunteer park cowl. the details:

pattern: dolores park cowl, by six one seven
yarn: malabrigo chunky, in verde adriana, one skein
needles: denise size 13s. i used 15s to bind off.
mods: none, other than omitting one row, because i was afraid i would run out of yarn.