How this pattern came together was quite a bit of trial and error. Creation of a pattern (as usual) takes much longer than the actual knitting. The actual knitting was 3 hours—total. A nice afternoon project with great results. Also of benefit is that I not only have a warm wear around the shoulders garment, I used up two yarns had had which were too much for a scarf/hat and not enough for a sweater.

I spent one whole day knitting swatches and seeing how the two yarns worked together. The main color is a single hand spun natural hank of worsted wool I picked up in Holbrook Arizona, just south of the Navaho Indian reservation. The other was three balls of wool ribbon yarn from my grandmother’s stash.

My inspiration for this garment was after I saw an Eileen Fisher capelet on a fashionista at work. I asked to inspect it more closely and it is from this that I chose the method of reducing—the creation of a seam in the back. Eileen’s was with a bulky fuzzy black yarn in garter stitch (so every other row knit/purl in the round) and had no border. I wanted both more and less texture. Less fuzz to show the yarns. Ribbing create visual appeal.