Going to use the rest of the yarn in The Beachcomber fade from Thea’s Faded Purple Shawl. If there isn’t enough I will just have to improvise!

Using a 4.5mm needle b/c I couldn’t find a spare 4mm one and I usually knit a bit tightly anyway. We will see how it goes! I am hoping that I end up with a cowl that I can pull down over my (very narrow) shoulders if needed …

I wish yarn chicken was more fun! I have one pattern repeat to go and I have started the last little ball of colour. Luckily, though, there is a little bit more of this one left than there was of the others. However, I think my gauge might be a little bit tight, so making an extra repeat would be good if I had the yarn. I have emailed the Miss Babs staff to ask for suggestions of a couple of colours to extend the gradient into darker colours and I’ve been knitting away in the meantime. I am so very pleased with how this is turning out - far more feminine than I thought but still quite robust. Couldn’t be happier with either the pattern or the yarn!

So I ordered a couple of Yummy two ply options to try to coordinate/continue the gradient b/c I was pretty sure I would run out of yarn. Later on I did, indeed, run out of yarn but I desperately wanted to finish! Luckily, I found a skein of Dulcinea right next to me that seems to not look too out of place in terms of colour! It has given the bottom of the cowl a nice warm pinkish colour. I only managed a couple of stripes to fade it in but there were only two rows of the pattern left after that!

I decided to try a two colour bind off in order to bring some of the gradient colour down to the bottom. I used the scraps of a couple of the colours alternating with the Dulcinea. The two colours are twisted together on the right side of the garment to form a kind of braided look. To do it, with wrong side facing, I knitted two stitches, passed them back to the left needle and knitted them together tbl with the next colour, then passed that stitch back and k2tog tbl with the first yarn, passed the stitch back and k2tog tbl with second yarn and so on, making sure to always bring the yarn to be used over the top of the previous one. This actually made it really easy to get the tension just how I wanted it b/c I kept the loops really loose on the needle and just adjusted the loop to how I wanted it to look when I next picked up that strand of yarn (loop was off the needles then). I am sure it is probably a method of binding off that people who do colourwork use but I am quite pleased to have come up with it myself! It could look highly decorative in highly contrasting colours

There is very little left from the Beachcomber set - just a few metres of three of the colours and none of the others. I only used a very small amount of the Dulcinea - will have to weigh the skein to see how much is left …

Colour is probably most accurate in the photo captioned “Finished but not washed/blocked”

I haven’t measured my gauge but I think it must be tighter than the pattern calls for if I compare my cowl to the pattern photo

Note on the gradient: I discovered whilst knitting this that having more area of striping than of the solid colour actually makes the colour morph smoother. I think it is b/c there isn’t really a place for the eye to rest in terms of colour - it is basically always changing …

Another thing I did whilst knitting this was to make sure I changed yarns one or two stitches away from the beginning of the round in the section that is knit in the round. I sometimes find the tension a bit wonky in that area even without changing yarns so having the yarn change off to one side or the other a bit made it easier to get that looking a little bit neater (although, it still isn’t wonderful - but I am basically a messy person …)