MidWinter Wanderer; Or, This Pattern Makes Me Smile!

Pattern: MidWinter Wanderer [download now]
Yarn: 4.5 hanks of Noro Silk Garden

This pattern has been sitting in my brainfiles for over a year now (as the yarn has also been sitting in my stashpile for that length of time too!)

As is my nature, I was distracted by many and sundry other things (including shiny yarn! ooo, shiny yarn...) and so have only just gotten around to knitting and writing up this pattern in the last month or so.

And I have to admit... I really like it!

It's been integrated quite successfully into my everyday wardrobe, and the design surprised me with its unexpected versatility.

At first I was only envisioning a hood with a heel, playing with short rows and cables to create something warm; some kind of hat-and-scarf hybrid.
Something that you could throw on without wrecking your already-pretty-damn-mussed-up hair.
Something that would flatter the very pretty yarn with its beautiful colour gradations and warm-white fuzzy glow.

What I wasn't expecting was how very wearable I've found it, especially as a (if I may say so) almost-chic indoor accessory.
Witness the (rather yucky) photo beneath.
It pairs quite nicely with a long-sleeved top, adding an extra layer and acting almost like a poncho or capelet.

(Let me tell you, I had a bit of a time trying to figure out how to classify this baby into Ravelry's pattern database. Scarf? Cowl? Hat? Hood? Hrmmmm)

This is possibly the happiest I've been with a design in a very long time.
It makes me feel so warm and cozy.
I'm particularly chuffed about the scrunchiness of the hood when I wear it down (which of course obliterates all the cables, but to me, makes the cowl/hood look kinda stylin and cool).

You can see this scrunchy goodness in the photo below.
(incidentally, I do have the ability to inundate you all to even further levels of oversaturation with MidWinter Wanderer photos, and have posted a couple different ones on Ravelry.)


It's taken me a while to get this FO posted simply because I knew I wanted to have a pattern all ready to go.

It's up as a free download in the link above as well as on Ravelry. As always, I'm trying to learn and improve my pattern-writing skills, and so am encouraging any and all who choose to knit this knit to kindly send me some feedback as to their experience.

With other cabley patterns in the works, I need to polish off those chart writing skills tout de suite!