Eskimimi Knits knitting blog

Thermal stitch cowl - stocking up the winter accessories

Here is the latest item freshly of the eskineedles – a thermal stitch cowl from the popular Thermis pattern.  I’ve enjoyed the look of this pattern for some time and cast on in a bit of a spur-of-the-moment blur when I was looking for a small, fast, satisfying project to work on a few evenings ago.  This is a fast knit.  A dedicated knitter who is less easily distracted than I could probably finish it in an evening.  I’m not so attentive, though.  I can be in full concentration about someth… ooh, look, shiny!

I hardly deviated from the pattern as prescribed at all on this one.  I changed the 1×1 ribbing to a simple twisted 1×1 rib as I always feel my 1×1 rib doesn’t look very attractive and find that twisting it neatens up the columns of stitches quite nicely. I also took a couple of rows out of the top ribbing section (I think there should have been ten and I knit eight) because I noticed that the buttons on a lot of the completed projects were a little distance from the top and that the ends of the button bands parted at the top a little.

Usually I would like to have taken a modelled shot of this, but I’ve been a tad poorly recently and today woke up with a very swollen face leaving me looking (as my darling other half charmingly put it) like a cross between Paul McCartney and Bagpuss.  When I feel less horrible I will take a picture of it on, though its concealing properties have not escaped me.  Hopefully tomorrow will be as cold and rainy as today has been so when I attend my medical appointment I will be able to hide most of my face beneath my new knit (so as not to scare babies and young children) and remain thoroughly buttoned up.

Button me up

I have found myself these last few days longing for the winter months. I am not a child of the summer, and Eskimo Mimi was made for the snow, and the wind, and the cold. I like to wrap up warm against the cold, to envelope myself in warm and soft layers of comfort, rather then find myself in a hot and sticky climate that I cannot escape from. You can always put more layers of warmth on, but levels of nakedness are definitely finite. And there are laws against that kind of thing.

So last night, pining for the months I love most, I cast on Thermis.

Preparing for the winter

It’s a simple knitted cowl, started with a number of rows of 1×1 rib.  I usually avoid single rib like the plague as I find it the least attractive rib, but as with my Warden Bay socks I have elected for a twisted knit stitch in the ribbing which neatness things up considerably as well as adding a good deal of definition to the ridges and furrows.  Other than that I will probably stick to the pattern as written and enjoy a simple, no thinking necessary knit.  Roll on winter.