Sherman's Howlin' Cowl

I've unintentionally knit another cowl. This actually started off as a simple ribbed hat, but I ran out of yarn. I decided to bind off anyway and make it a cowl. It actually tuned out pretty good. It fits me and because of the ribbing fits a variety of neck sizes - as demonstrated by my model. The funny thing is he didn't seem to mind wearing it around at all and I had to chase him down to get it back.

This is knit out of some of my favorite handspun to date. I like it so much primarily because of the color combinations and the way the roving was dyed - it looked like it could easily turn into a striping yarn and that is what I wanted. I spilt the roving along the length trying to make each strip as even as possible. I then divided the strips into two even piles be weight and began spinning. I started spinning each strip from the same end to keep the colors in order.

This seemed to work well and until I was about half way through the plying, I was getting really excited about the results. That is about the time that the colors started to get off track. I was really curious on how this would all knit up and you can see what I'm talking about in the finished piece. You can see along the bottom half of the cowl the nice solid colored stripes.The top half still stripes, the colors just aren't solid. I actually like both halves and don't mind the mix in this cowl, bu tit would be nice to able to control the results a little more.

I'm guessing the colors got off track for a couple of reasons. The first being that my spinning is not perfectly even so even if I had exactly even amounts in both threads there would be some difference and the second - I'm guessing that there were different amounts of the individual colors in each ply. I figure I have a few options for this in the future. I could learn chain plying and really guarantee the colors stay together or I could become a more consistent spinner and try a few new ideas on splitting the fiber more evenly or I could just not worry about it and enjoy things as they turn out.

Project Info
Pattern: Sherman's Howlin' Cowl by sgeddes; modeled by Sherman
No pattern. Just a simple tube of 2x2 ribbing knit in the round over 80 stitche
Yarn: Geddesburg Handspun Yarn
Blue faced Leicester; 4 oz/118 yards
Needles: addi TURBO US# 11 (8mm)
Notes: The name came to me while looking at that first picture of Sherman modeling the cowl. He just tipped his head right back as if he was ready to howl at the moon.