Thanks to the wonders of Pinterest I’ve recently gotten into various “lady-like” hobbies, including sewing, cooking, baking, and now kniting! On my recent trip to Austin I found myself in an amazing store that doesn’t exist on the East Coast, Hobby Lobby. The yarn section was great and on a whim I decided to buy some chunky purple yarn and learn how to knit. I bought 1 skein of Lion Brand Thick and Quick Yarn in Eggplant, aluminum needles, and learned the basics of knitting from youtube (this channel is great). I intended to make a scarf, but after a while I got tired and decided to turn it into a cowl by sewing together both ends of the scarf. I had to buy another skein from Amazon.com because 1 skein didn’t look right. I sort of improvised the pattern using what I thought would be easy enough for my first knitting project but would also look good enough to actually wear. It ended up being a garter stitch which is just a knit stitch the whole way through.

Pattern:
-1.5 skeins bulky yarn
-CO (cast on) 28 stitches
-S1 (slip 1 stitch), knit until end of row to create garter stitch
(by slipping the first stitch you create a nicer edge)
-weave in ends and sew together both ends of scarf to create cowl

Even though the pattern is very simple I did mess up by increasing one row halfway up the knit. However, since I turned it into a cowl you can’t really tell because of the drape but if I had left it a scarf it would’ve been blatantly obvious. That was just a lucky save!

To continue to be inspired and keep track of my future knitting projects, I joined a knitting community site called Ravelry. I hope to make scarves, hats and baby booties in the coming weeks. For my next circular knitting project I’ll be using circular needles so I won’t have to sew together the knit to create a circle – it’ll be seamless. Let’s see if this hobby sticks – I love it so far!