owls and cowls

Owls seem to be a real trend since 2009. Someone discovered that you can make cables look like an owl (like this or like this) and now there are owls everywhere. Apart from the many, many owl toys, crocheted and knitted, those cable owls are on everything, owl hats, owl gloves, owl sweaters, owl baby sweaters, owl cardigans, owl socks, owl cushions, owl bags, owl bibs and whatever else can be decorated with this cable pattern. Owls are hot and I don't get it. I prefer snowmen/women, myself.

There are patterns for owl cowls as well. How could there not be? Cowls were extremely hot in late 2008 and all through 2009, but now the trend to cover your neck has differentiated itself into various categories. Cowls are still being designed and offered, but the real run is currently on kerchiefs (hot, but leveling off), infinity scarves (pretty hot, but not as hot) and hooded scarves (increasingly hot). Now that's a trend I can get behind (even though I don't really like a bandwagon). A warm neck is very nice and a cowl uses much less yarn than a scarf, so I can buy a ball or two of pretty yarn, knit it up very quickly and not have to spend too much money.

So, since the sun has refused to come out of hiding (yesterday my mother and I chased it to Lower Austria and drove up a mountain to get to it) and since I'm kind of stalling before starting my 200th project (200 put up on Ravelry anyway) and since the baby hat I started has given me only pain and is on a time-out ... it's time for a walk through the cowls.

Between Bern and Lucerne in Switzerland, there is a wonderful stretch of country where you can get all sorts of deliciousness. There's Kirschtorte from Zug, big gingerbread from Lucerne which is cut into slices and eaten with butter and giant meringues from Bern. All to be had just by driving along a single road. And at the end of that particular road lies Huttwil with its Spycher-Handwerk farm/yarn/fleece/woolly things shop and yarny goodness! A giant barn full of yarn and unspun wool and we only had 30 minutes before they closed! So I grabbed a beautiful 50/50 silk/merino mix (among other things *cough*) and only a little later, I made two cowls. I love the color so much - it's like the sky at dusk and dawn when it's kind of lavender, yet still a beautiful blue. I simply took my favorite lace patterns - that sprig or sometimes also cockleshell lace of the first cowl is basically my favorite lace pattern - and knit. These are the Cowl for Dusk and Dawn and the Cowl for Dawn and Dusk.

 

 

Soon after these, I knit another one, using the colors of the season, grey and petrol, and a simple but effective lace pattern, feather and fan, calling it the Fleeting Fashion Colors Cowl. I donated it to my mother, though, because she was cold and wanted a cowl. The yarn I used was Lana Grossa Laseta and I found these two balls next to each other in the sales bin of my favorite yarn shop. I can totally tell that this picture was taken in very early spring 2009 (besides, I actually know it was taken then), because of the mallow plant in the background

Then, I was a little cowled out. But after the 2009 Knit in Public Day in Vienna's Stadtpark, where I left with a few goodies and even more purchases, at the completely wrong time (really hot summer), I made a neckwarmer. I used the Cashmere Neckwarmer pattern by Kim K. and a freebie skein of Malabrigo Gruesa (first time I used Malabrigo ... sigh) and let myself be inspired by one of my favorite anime, Seirei no Moribito. Then began the hunt for the perfect button and I found one, too, but I have yet to sew it on and block the Seirei no Moribito Neckwarmer, even though I could use it right now (yes, that's a little silly).

The anime theme stayed right with me. After obsessing for a long time about Bakumatsu Kikansetsu Irohanihoheto and its hero, Akizuki Youjiro, and coming across the beautiful Lana Grossa Fauna (so soft! with alpaca) in exactly the right shade of blue, I knit a rather simple, but warm and (to me) effective cowl (for You-san). Once anime and knitting come together, it's a slippery slope. See, You-san wears a dark blue cowl and he uses it to hide his face when he doesn't want to be recognised and I felt just like that at the time. It isn't the most impressive cowl, the stitch pattern is simple and easily lost, but I love it and its understatedness.

And then my favorite yarn store (the Pingouin on Alserstraße) put out the good stuff. Pure, thick cashmere. Lana Grossa Solo Cashmere, to be exact. In a shade that was impossible to photograph, an ultraviolet purple. In the pictures it looks blue, but it really, really isn't. So I got two balls of purple and one ball of grey and set out to create a cowl that would pay homage to a great female anime character, Re-L, from Ergo Proxy. It matches her eyeshadow ... (slippery slope, I said). When the weather is damp, it smells a littly goaty :) The fairisle pattern was a bit painful - how to create something that looks random, but isn't? It all turned out well in the end, I think.

So I actually have six cowls (and a neckwarmer) at my personal disposal. Two for spring/fall, four for winter. The last one so far is for the coldest winter weather only and so I fittingly called it Winter Armor. It is the simplest of designs, because I didn't really want to bother with something extra-fancy - now I kind of wish I had, but I don't want to undo it all. Maybe with the next cowl. Gedifra Highland Alpaca, the yarn I used, made an appearance in the yarn store in the fall of 2008 and I had been lusting for it ever since, but couldn't find a pattern to justify buying a ball or two. Cowl to the rescue!

There's one more cowl (ok, probably a few more, but I have yarn especially designated for a cowl) in my future, but  I still don't know what pattern to use. Design one myself? After all, five of my six cowls are self-designed. Or find a pattern? We'll see. For now, it's baby hats baby hats baby hats baby hats baby hats ...