And the Winner Is...

...little rolled collar! Wait. That's a cowl. Well, yeah. See, even though the vote was clearly on the side of the little rolled hem, I decided, I'm the knitter, I'm the wearer, so I'm going to make what I want!


And I love it. :)


Not that it wouldn't have looked great with the little rolled collar--it would have been adorable. But I planned it as a cowl and I really wanted a cowl, so...


Right now it is blocking on Bertha (my typical blocking method, because it gives the fabric a realistic stretch). It seems to have grown about 3 inches in length, which is what I had planned, so it should fit perfectly, but I'll have to wait until it is dry to be sure. (That's why there are still yarn ends hanging loose. Experience has taught me it is much easier to pick out the bind off if you haven't already woven in the ends prior to blocking. Once I'm sure the length is right, I'll weave in the ends.)

Modeled shots to follow.

Escape From Sleeve Island

In all the years I've been knitting sweaters--and I've knitted a lot of sweaters--I've only found one way off Sleeve Island, and that's full speed ahead.

The first sleeve of Francis Again took me three weeks to finish. Now, I'll admit I was distracted by other things, like Mosaic Madness, but still, three weeks is an unreasonable length of time for a single sleeve. So yesterday, when I finally bound off the first sleeve, I immediately cast on the second and decided to knit until it was done.

As you can see, it's done! (I know the sleeves look really short--it's deliberate. This yarn is going to grow like a teenager in the summertime when it hits water, so I knitted everything short in anticipation of wet blocking.)

I've been looking forward to casting on the lovely, large cowl neck, but when I tried this on, my husband took one look and insisted I not put on a collar at all, or if I had to have one, just a minimal little rolling edge collar. Now, I really want the cowl, but he made me agree to ask the blog for its opinion first.

So what say you, Blog?

Large, floppy cowl?

Or little, rolled edge?

We await your decision.