Finished: Tilting Ribs Cowl

Thursday morning I finished knitting the scarf for my brother.  Thursday evening I sat down to graft the ends together. 

 

The pattern (Tilting Ribs Scarf) is for a scarf, but I thought a cowl would stay out of my brother's way better, as cowls have no loose ends that can dangle.  To make the join as invisible as possible, I started with a provisional cast-on (the red yarn you see in my photos).  When I was ready to graft, I picked up the stitches held by the cast-on and unzipped and unpicked the crochet chain.  The Cascade 220 had managed to wrap itself around my red scrap yarn in several places, so some unpicking was necessary.

I then spent 40 minutes trying to sort out why I had picked up one less stitch then was supposed to be there.  I found it eventually.

So, Friday evening I sat down to graft the ends together.  I had not managed to successfully graft anything before, so I spent some time reading different sets of instructions first.  The row I wanted to add was going to be something close to 3x3 ribbing, so I eventually landed on TechKnitter’s instructions, as they were the most general across different types of fabric.  Since I wanted to add a row identical to the last one I knitted, I ignored what type of stitches I actually had on my top or back needle and assumed they matched the ones on my bottom or front needle, and away I went.

 

The white lines are dental floss to hold my last rows of stitches for when I needed to rip back.  It happened once.

About an hour later, I had a finished cowl.  Grafting accomplished!

 

Pattern: Tilting Ribs Scarf

Materials: 167 grams of Cascade 220, 4mm Lang needle

Specifications: The scarf is three pattern repeats long.  I did a provisional cast-on to start, and stopped the last pattern repeat one row short.  Grafting the ends together completed the repeat and closed the scarf into a flat (not infinity) cowl.

The finished scarf is now just waiting for my next hand-washing laundry day, and then I will tag it with washing instructions and send it to my brother.  This leaves only one more Christmas scarf to go!