Copilot and Pussywillow

I had picked up some variegated sock yarn a while back (maybe a year and a half ago), simply because I liked the colors. We all feed the stash once in a while, right? And then I was diagnosed with carpal tunnel syndrome, so I don’t knit as much as I used to. Anyway, so there was this skein of Malabrigo Sock Yarn in the Cake Please colorway that I got to first, and I decided to make the Copilot cowl (it’s a free pattern, too!). 

After casting on the proper number of stitches, you join in the round, knit a border, and get started with a sort of lattice pattern. As I knit, I got the pattern down pretty quickly, and ended up missing an important line on the paper. I thought it was simply a matter of repeating the lattice pattern established after the border, so that’s what I did, right up until finishing the border along with the last yards of my skein of yarn. It was only as I was taking pictures for this post that I realized it didn’t look like the image… It looked more like the Autopilot, which is in fact how I was knitting. 

So I set it aside for a while, and eventually frogged it to remake it. This time, I cast on fewer stitches, since I thought the cowl had been a bit too long the first time around. I knit up the cowl the correct way, but when I looked at it, I didn’t like it. I think I must have knit two extra rows in one of the lattice stretches at some point, despite using a stitch counter. Plus, it now felt a little too short. Like, too long to wear it without wrapping it twice around your neck, but not long enough to comfortably wrap twice around your neck. 

I eventually frogged it again and knit it up one last time, shorter than the first time but longer than the second, making sure to count my rows properly. I’ve decided to leave it as is now because I’m just tired of this project! I perhaps should have steamed the yarn to make sure it wasn’t twisted, but I didn’t have it in me. It looks pretty good, honestly, but I’m annoyed with how long it took! 

After that, because I can’t help myself when it comes to yarn in pretty colors, I decided to knit the Pussywillow Cap (in which you hold together a strand of fingering weight and a strand of lace weight yarns), with Madelinetosh Tosh Merino Light Yarn in Lakefront Speckle and Shibui Knits Silk Cloud Yarn in Lakefront (the colorways are no longer available at my usual store, Jimmy Beans Wool, but I have seen them elsewhere online as I post this). And I added a faux fur pompom just because. 

Once again, I managed to not pay enough attention and knit a rib pattern on every row instead of ribbing the wrong side and knitting the right side. *sigh* I just didn’t want to start over, so it is what it is. The result is really cute, and I just love the colors, but of course I wish I had more opportunities to wear knit hats. I still have half of my yarn left, too, so I might make another hat for the Etsy shop (but a different pattern, since this one is for personal use only).