Justin's Mini Herringbone Scarf

Two Christmases ago, I intended to give my fiancé the fanciest scarf I had ever made: Purl Soho's Men's Mini Herringbone Scarf using Pro Lana Baby Alpaca Yarn in green, his favorite color.  This was the first time I had tried the herringbone stitch, and it ended up being a little too fancy for the time I had allotted myself, and just like that, the Christmas present turned into a Valentine's Day present. 

Now that Valentine's day is coming up again, I took a moment to photograph it, because it really is quite the scarf.

Herringbone stitch is the craziest thing.  You're using larger needles than the yarn calls for, so it seems like the knitting should go quickly, but that isn't the case at all.  Every stitch gets worked twice, and all the crisscrossing makes a shockingly tight, double-thick finished product that is as warm as it is beautiful.

It was totally worth the work.

A Knitted Bandana Cowl

I made myself a Bandana Cowl, using a lovely knitting pattern from The Purl Bee.

First of all, I love The Purl Bee.  It's a fantastic blog run by the ladies of Purl Soho, which is a knitting store that will be first on my list of sights to see if I'm ever back in New York City.

Second of all, I love my new cowl.

The pattern calls for bulky yarn, but I chose to make mine with worsted weight yarn because I wanted it to be a light and airy knit that I could wear while I'm here in the Caribbean.  (On a side note, it was actually kind of chilly today as we sailed back toward Florida.  Not Colorado chilly, obviously, but chilly nonetheless.)

If you take a close look at my pictures, you can see little specks of light shining between the stitches, which is exactly what I was going for with the lighter weight yarn.

My yarn choice also made my cowl extra drapey in the front, so it's even better for the Caribbean because it doesn't cover my neck very much.

In case you haven't caught on by now, I made this cowl 100% for aesthetics and 0% for neck warming.

The actual knitting process was quite quick, and the short rows kept me entertained.  In fact, I enjoyed the short rows so much that I'd like to seek out another pattern involving short rows to knit for one of my next few projects.  Do you know of any good ones?

Anyway, I hope you're staying warm and toasty wherever you are in the world.

If you're not in a tropical climate like I am, perhaps The Purl Bee's Bandana Cowl knit with the proper bulky-weight yarn would be just what the doctor ordered.

Happy knitting!
xoxo
Laura