Fluff!

I've finished the Ptarmigan Cowl, out of the lovely lovely Absolou.

It's light as a feather and oh so fluffy. It says in the pattern to block it. My philosophy on that is: if you can already see the lace pattern, why bother? Especially when its going to be all wadded up on my neck most of the time anyways and it'll just undo all that hard pinning work. (Plus, who wants to hurt that lovely squooshy yarns?!)

The pattern called for 175 yards of yarn, and that is EXACTLY what I had. So, to be on the safe side (and also because I am beyond paranoid) I only did 2 garter ridges at each end, instead of 3. I probably would have been fine doing 3, as I ended up with a little extra yarn, but I wasn't stressed about running out the entire time this way. The main reason for this decision is Mr. Flood recommended the long tail cast on, and I always overshoot on that, so I had about 2 yards of dangle left on my cast on that MIGHT be necessary. It was really better this way.

The pattern also suggests a sewn bind off. (AKA tedious beyond reason bind off) This was for stretchy purposes. I'd never done it, so I gave it a shot. It's not much stretcher than if I had cast off normally. If you want something super stretchy I'd google some other methods. Otherwise, this method is fine. ESPECIALLY if you're one of those people who ends up with a funky mc-bunched tight cast off all the time. 

I'm off to work on the Haruni. The plain, boring, white haruni. While my dogwood blossoms sweater kit taunts me....

For those of you who were concerned, it only took 45 minutes but with a little help from my dog we managed to get the alpaca untangled. It's intact, and doesn't seem to have suffered much during its little doggie adventure.