The Rainbow Connection

Welcome to the best knitting season, actually any season is good for knitting, you just have to find the right project for you. I am in love with Malabrigo Rasta, great color choices, great feel, great results almost always!  I have been knitting using a slipped "rib" 

row 1 knit 1 slip 1

row 2 purl.(in the round you knit)

  I have made a scarf, blanket and now a cowl. The blanket shown in progress is made from Malabrigo Rios, a washable lovely yarn itself!  More about the blanket later....

The slipped rib exploration project was inspired by the relatively unknown free Stephen West pattern  call slipped rib scarf and here is the link ->   http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/slipped-rib-scarf   of course, the pattern is unknown, not Stephen West!

The wide superwarm cowl is knit in the round. using 2 skeins of Rasta, shown in Arco Iris, which is Spanish for Rainbow. I happen to be a rainbow hunter. You can be too!  It needs to be sunny and raining at the same time.  If a big storm passes by you and the sunlight shines through the rain, there is a rainbow!  Here is a photo of a rainbow over KNITTY CITY, my favorite yarn store in the world located at 79th and Amsterdam in NY city.  (They just got in a bunch of Rasta, and usually stock it, call-they will send to you very kindly and quickly!)

Why is it my favorite LYS you might wonder? There are many yarn stores in Manhattan.

1. Great Atmosphere, lots of people knitting IN the store
2. The people(some who work there and some who knit there) are very inspiring both regarding knitting and life!
3. Great Yarn
4. I always learn something there, my motto, either you are knitting or you are learning(about knitting)![At work it is you are either winning or learning..... unfortunately I cant knit at work.]

Back to pattern, Get 2 skeins of Malabrigo Rasta, 1 stitch marker, a circular needle #15(10mm)

nice loose long tail cast on of 100 stitches, Join in the round

ROW 1 KNIT 1 SLIP 1(slip purlwise with yarn in FRONT)

ROW 2 KNIT

REPEAT 2 rows 

for me it was 38 rows or 19 repeats of the above 2 rows, bind off with a HUGE #19 or make sure you bind off loosely (really I mean it) Finished Dimensions 48" around 9" high

Gauge 8 stitches for 4 inches in pattern(not hugely important)

Here is a variation, use 2 different colors, alternative 1 row every time, for example I mixed Abril and Arco Iris, cast on using a slip knot with the 2 of them and the long tail with abril on the left and arco iris on the right for the cast on, then alternated abril and arco iris for each row, one for the slip row one for the knit row, I then switched the order about half way through!  you can see the horizontal line you get from slipping with yarn in front changes from the blue/purple of abril to the rainbow of the arco iris below...

Happy Knitting, this only takes about 2-4 hours to whip up!