(Koigu) Cashmere Cowl No. 2

I finished another project! This is quite a breakthrough for me — actually finishing projects! This one is the Cashmere Cowl No. 2 - Lace Rib from Purl Bee. I had wanted to make one for some time and spent quite a lot of time staring at the wonderful wall of cashmere at Purl until I made the employees visibly uncomfortable (in case you don't know, the cashmere is right over the head of whoever is occupying the register) but I never quite found the right time to do it or the right color. But then I got this wonderful yellow koigu. I am obsessed with yellow right now. As, so it seems, is half of the rest of the world (but that works out well for me because it's easy to find things in lots of particular shades of yellow). So, rather than continue to build my humongous stash, I decided to just make the cowl from it.

If you decide to try this at home, you should probably cast on 138 rather than the 180 that the pattern calls for as my cowl is larger than ideal. But I'm still happy with it! And it matches my new scarf so when it gets really cold (and I know it will, no matter how deceptively warm it stays into December — I will NOT be fooled as I was last year!) I'll be prepared. Also, be sure not to be deterred by the huge amount of explanation in the instructions. The pattern includes VERY thorough explanations of some of the less common ideas like passing slipped stitches over but really it is just a tube of a 4-row lace pattern.