As I mentioned yesterday, I began a new pattern for a cowl. Now, when viewing the picture on the pattern, I really liked the look of it, kind of linen like. So I decided to go for it.

It’s SO RARE that I get frustrated with a pattern, and especially rare that I feel that maybe I shouldn’t even have paid for a pattern these days. But that’s where I am with this pattern, and I’ll tell you why.

It’s a pattern for a cowl, knit with thin yarn on larger than usual needles. It’s knit in the round, and then grafted at the end to make a continuous tube. All of that sounds great. Except for a couple things.

First of all, it asks for sport weight yarn and size 10 needles. Which would explain the lineny look. It’s extremely drapey. And, the next bit is partly my problem, which I’ll own. Rather than a sport weight yarn, I chose Noro Taiyo Sock yarn for this. So, thinner than even the pattern asks for. That’s my bad. And, in addition to that, as with all noro, it’s rather thick and thin so there are areas that are downright laceweight.

That being said, even with a sport weight yarn, the number of stitches required to cast on is too small to use a circular needle and work in the round. So, I decided that I’d magic loop, after restarting a couple of times, breaking my working yarn, and getting frustrated. Magic loop worked, sort of, after I got it started. Except that the very thin yarn on very large needles wants to pull on the circs, making it hard to move all the stitches from the cable to the needle portion of the circ. I did it for quite a few rounds, but realized that doing so for that long was probably going to create a crazy lady, which I didn’t want. I can only fight with my needles for so long before getting very angry. And, when I took an honest look at the tube I was creating, it was WAY too thin anyhow. Not cowl sized, but tiny scarf sized.

So, my next solution was to cast on double the amount of stitches and get a reasonable sized cowl, with still the lineny look of the large needles and thin yarn, and this also served the purpose of having enough stitches on the circ so that I could comfortably work in the round. Ok. Good. We are on a roll.

Except for my second complaint. Which is that the pattern states I should work “a few” rows of stockinette, and then get the rather small lace section knit, before continuing on the rest of the cowl in stockinette. So, now we have the place that I will graft stitches sitting right near the focal point of the entire cowl. I’d better be an expert grafter to get that to look perfect and unnoticeable! May I also add that grafting thin yarn on large needles will also create tension issues, so my expert grafter needs will be challenged further.

In any case, I think you can sense my current frustration with this project, despite wanting to actually continue the project. And I am too far along now, and have had too many issues with restarting to yank it to place the lace section further along in the cowl. It’s not happening. If it gets ripped out this time, it’s permanent, and then I’ve wasted money on a pattern. So, this is now a work project. I brought it to work this morning and that’s where it’s likely to stay. I can probably commit to an hour of stockinette a day for 4-5 days a week.