Cowling Around

I spent a lot of time this past week looking for THE pattern for one of my summer yarns. I finally decided last night to make up a pattern myself.
I’m using the hempathy and I’m making a top down raglan with a drapey cowl in the front. I’ll be able to wear it to work as well as on the weekend.
I’m definitely winging the cowl.

I love the hand of hemp and linen when laundered so I knit up a gauge swatch and washed and dried it. After drying I got 6 SPI and 9.5 RPI.
I sketched it out and calculated my CO amount. Since this is a raglan I also calculated what I’ll have at the end of the raglans (when I split off for the sleeves).
I did a few rows of garter before joining in the round. This is for two reasons. I want a slight bit of weight at the edge of the cowl to help it drape. Plus, I used a knitted on CO and it spirals around the needle before it has any knitting to stabilize it. I love the look of the knitted on CO when used with garter.
A little discovery. I cast on at a cafe and I realized that I forgot my stitch markers just as I was pulling in to park. There was no way I could do a top down raglan without stitch markers! Thankfully there was a Target nearby so I picked up a package of hair elastics for girls – you know, those thin elastics made for little girls’ hair. I intended just to use them so I could start, but these are *awesome* as stitch markers! They’re super thin and come in a variety of colors. So I have one color for the raglan increases, one for the cowl decreases, and one for the end of row. These will definitely be in my knitting bag from now on.
I’m sharing my knitting time between this and my grey jacquard socks. My goal is to knit through a few more skeins of sock yarn before Maryland in May. And I also want to knit something I’ll actually be able to wear this season. Reasonable goals, right?