sustainable fisheries

While out shopping on Small Business Saturday at our local yarn shop, I found myself oohing and aahing at the lovely skeins of Noro yarn they had in stock. I chose one for my mom to play with and one for this project. In barn buddy tradition, I’m making a friend a cowl for her birthday. It will come in handy to wear while riding and puttering around the barn in the cold(ish) weeks we have here. 

I chose a pattern out of my book of slip stitch knitting and knit until I ran out of yarn. Simple! The pattern itself, not so simple. There are a lot of cable crosses and maneuvering of yarn onto different needles that are required and some manual dexterity was key in getting this to not take forever. I fiddled around until I could hold all three needles in such a way that the cables weren’t cumbersome. Once I got a rhythm established it went pretty smoothly. The fun part was seeing new stripes of color come off the skein and into the fabric every few rows. 

I like the way the pattern turned out. Pairing a simple single texture with the more exciting self striping yarn worked out nicely. I’m calling it sustainable fisheries for a couple of reasons. First, the recipient is really interested in the sustainable seafood program at the Monterey Bay Aquarium. Second, the pattern reminds me a lot of fish netting on the right side and waves on the wrong side. Seemed appropriate.

These cool blue and green colors are right up her alley, and I’m happy to say that after blocking the finished piece will wrap around a neck twice to stay out of the way while riding. I hope she likes it!

Pattern: Zlaty Dest cowl (my Ravelry page)
Yarn: Noro Taiyo in color 124
Needle: US 9