I finally got myself together enough to release the pattern for the cowl I completed last month:

This is the Nordic Border Cowl II. Why II? Because I discovered when entering the pattern in Ravelry that I have a Nordic Cowl pattern, and in my admin section of Ravelry it is called Nordic Border Cowl, even though it shows up as just Nordic Cowl in the Ravelry pattern pages. So I’m just ensuring that there is no confusion, although I did manage to confuse myself thoroughly . . .

That’s my very patient colleague Lemiel modelling the cowl for you. I lured him into my office on the pretext of discussing a work project and foisted the cowl upon him. He is a very good sport to put up with this and I do think the cowl looks great on him. (We did also discuss the work project, by the way.)

Anyway, the pattern is now available here in my Ravelry store and for a limited time (until midnight January 15) it is available for $3.00. After that time it will revert to the regular price of $5.00.

In other knitting news, I am working on another hat. This one is Risalire, designed by Woolly Wormhead.

I am using Koigu Painter’s Palette Premium Merino in colorway 315 P. The pattern calls for Koigu and looks really pretty in it, so I ordered 2 skeins in this colorway a few months ago for this hat. I am on a “hat kick” right now so it seemed like the right time to jump in and cast on. It’s knit on 2.25mm and 2.5mm needles, so a very fine gauge. And the stitch pattern is based on garter stitch, so it has a very compressed row gauge: 12.25 rows per inch! It makes for slow going, but the yarn is lovely and I am liking how the pattern looks, os all in all, it is an enjoyable knit!

The hats are very useful right now as our weather has suddenly turned cold. And I’ve noticed the colder the weather, the more snuggly Loki gets. He loves to snuggle up next to me on the couch:

Can you find his head in this picture? I think he must have retracted it, like a turtle!

Well, 2015 zipped by pretty quickly.

I finished up a few things in the last days of 2015. Starting with this:

I actually finished my Border Cowl before Christmas. A pattern will be available soon.

And I finished this next:

This is a hooded scarf from the Fall 2014 issue of Vogue Knitting, and it looks like this being worn:

I made mine from Mrs Crosby Ombra della Sera yarn in the “Roasted Chestnut” colorway. This is a worsted weight yarn that is 90% cashmere and 10% nylon and 100% fabulous. The pattern called for 660 yards of worsted weight yarn and I purchased 880 yards so my scarf would be good and long,

The pattern directs you to start at one end and knit towards the center, increasing for the hood, and then decreasing down the other side to match, so that I would be able to use every bit of this lovely yarn, I started with a provisional cast-on in the center and knit down each side, decreasing as I went.

The resulting scarf is very long, so that I can easily wrap the ends around my neck and tie in the front.

I thin turned my attention to hats.

This is Blunk the Hat by Martina Behm and it is a really fun knit. Very, very clever construction! The yarn is Merino DK Gradient from Wollelfe in the “La Laguna” colorway.

I just finished this last night:

This is knit from a pattern called Pamir, and once again I used Merino DK Gradient from Wollelfe, this time in the “Granny Green” colorway. The pattern stitch around the bottom is tedious to knit but lovely to behold!

Speaking of lovely to behold . . .