Hydrangea Neckwarmer - Finished!

I cast this project on back on March 17, 2025.  This is more of my hand spun, hand dyed yarn.  I spun the yarn on my Kromski, with a 12:1 ratio, and played it on my Kiwi, with a ratio of 9.5:1 and dyed it with a Wool Tincture Dyes dye kit using the color Malbec.  While this yarn still had some variability in thickness, it did come out more on the thinner side - at 219 yards and 90 grams.

I wanted to make an accessory out of this yarn so I went searching on Ravelry and settled on this pattern by Anne Hanson from the book Brave New Knits, which I happened to have in my knitting library.  I did make some modifications to the pattern.  I went up a needle size, to a US 4 (3.5 mm) needle, and I cast on more stitches.  The smaller size of this cowl has you cast on 84 stitches, for a finished circumference of 16 inches, while the larger size has you cast on 96 stitches, for a finished circumference of 18 inches.  Frankly, both of these sizes seemed too small for my tastes.  I did start out with 96 stitches and really didn’t like how small it seemed, so I ripped and cast on 144 stitches.

I did have some hiccups with the pattern.  I much prefer knitting from charts and typically skip past the written instructions that go along with the chart, which caused some consternation when I reached round 7 and my motif was not lining up correctly.  It turns out that the beginning of the round shifts on rounds 7, 9, and 11.  The written instructions have you slip the first stitch on those rounds, but there is no mention of the reason for slipping that stitch or that the motif shifts.  Luckily the motif is easily memorized, and I shifted my round marker as necessary to work the decreases that spanned it, using the chart only to make sure that I was lining up the motif correctly.

I also had some issues with the knit-on edging.  The pattern calls for a provisional cast on so you can graft the last row to the first row to make a continuous edge.  I didn’t want to do it that way so I just left the first and last motifs separate.  I like the way it allows the edge to settle on the shoulders.  The lace pattern was also fairly straightforward and easy to memorize, although I did have to rip back three times to fix errors that I made and didn’t catch until I was close enough to the end to easily count the remaining stitches and realize that I had screwed up somewhere.  It was a bit frustrating, but I did have that chart memorized by the end!

When I went to block it I was initially going to pin it out as I do with any lace item, but as I was laying it out on the blocking mats I decided I liked the look of a gentle block, especially the way that the edge ruffled, so I just smoothed it out a little and left it.

Pattern:  Hydrangea Neckwarmer by Anne Hanson from Brave New Knits edited by Julie Turjoman

Yarn:  Heinz 57 top, from The Woolery, hand spun and hand dyed by me

Needle:  US 4 (3.5 mm)