Awhile back, maybe two years? Colourmart had a dk 50/50 merino/silk in a cheerful chestnut brown, almost sold out, that I knew was exactly my friend Phyl’s color. So I hinted, and at the time she said she wasn’t into cowls.

Fair enough. But I bought a cone anyway while I still could because the shade was so perfectly her.

A week ago, I pulled it out of the stash and wondered out loud in her presence if that reluctance still held.

“Oh, that’s my color!” And yes, yes she would quite like a cowl out of that, thank you!

Alright then!

So yesterday, I showed her the project at the halfway mark: did she want me to continue going straight, or fan out?

“Is yours straight?” (Yes it was.) “Fan out.”

Okay, so I had to design how I would do that in that lace pattern…

…And it is finished and drying and I learned how much I like how that just came out and I intend to do that again–if nothing else, so that I can get it written down as I go, so that I can then test knit it from that written-out, etc etc.

The plain no-brain hat that I started after dinner, meantime, is well on its way.