On The Needles - Feb. 12, 2016

I've been a little under the weather with a sinus infection and haven't done much knitting lately. It's hard when you find it difficult to breathe and are coughing all the time. My constant companion was a box of kleenex, a quilt to wrap up in and a cup of hot tea.  I think it's allergy related, but it's hard to concentrate or focus for any length of time. However, one day I felt a little better and decided to start something new. I bought this yarn at the quilt show in Paducah last year and they gave a free pattern with it.  The pattern is called Cloud Cowl and uses 1 skein of Bamboo Bloom Yarn.You knit the smooth yarn and purl the slubs. Even with my stuffed up head and on meds, it was a piece of cake.  And it goes fast!! The hardest part was casting on 100 stitches.  I kept losing my count and had to keep going back to the beginning to see what number I was on.

After knitting on size 10 1/2"needles with such an easy pattern, I'm not sure I want to go back to my tiny dpn sock needles.  The quick gratification of seeing something grow so quickly is motivating.  I love this yarn! The pattern says it will finish at 9" wide and 32" long..

My other project is another pair of socks that were started a few weeks back.  For some reason, I just can't seem to get these going correctly.  I think the color of the yarn is too similar to the needle colors and the stitches are hard to see. Somewhere I made a major mistake and had to rip back and then things were fine for a bit and before I knew it I had too many stitches on the needles. Now I am back to the right number of stitches on each needle, but I'd rather work on the cowl, so they will just have to wait a bit longer.
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I'm going to Patchwork Times to see what others are doing this week with their knitting.