Made for the best bus driver ever, in her favorite colors. It’s cold out there, campers! And nobody deserves a nice, soft, warm cowl than the woman who cares for your kids as if better than if they were her own.

• Inspired by Rayures pattern, but constructed a bit differently.

• Began on size 7 (4.5 mm) needles; obtained gauge I was aiming for (4.5 sts/inch), but didn’t care for fabric. Too loose for my taste. Ripped out and went down to a size 6 (4.0 mm) for a better effect.

• Using PCO (with crochet hook over knitting needle) for foundation row.

• CO 72 sts.

• Doing four rows of each color; beginning with red, then transitioning to gradient colorway.

• For first stripe, only working two rows of red; will work final row and grafting round in red to make it even. (Using red because gradient color would obviously not match up at end.)

• Wanted to make this an infinity scarf, but it wasn’t long enough to add a twist and not look wonky; for an infinity cowl I’d need to have fewer stitches/longer finished cowl.

• Almost finished with project; although I know it will block out a bit longer, it’s not as large (length-wise) as I’d like. In the future, I think I’ll need to cast on fewer stitches if I’m working with limited yardage.

• When working Kitchener stitch, realized that even though I’d worked three red rows total (and grafting would make the fourth), the grafted “band” was going to look narrower than the other rows. Undid work and knit one more row of red, making it a five-row section (with grafting), which worked out perfectly. Literally used up all but one yard of red yarn.

• Red yarn bled PROFUSELY when soaking; used color catchers, and no dye transferred to the gray sections. I’ve always found this yarn has a lot of extra red in it when I wash it, but it has never caused any bleeding whatsoever.

• For future reference: the limiting factor when blocking this project came from how tightly I pulled the yarns I carried on the inside of the work. I was consistent, but it definitely gave the cowl a “spine” to it.