Boxcars and Jeweled Cowl

Another blog post so soon you say? Why yes, let's chat shall we?
I've been knitting on my Boxcars Poncho for quite some time now. I started it toward the end of August. Ripped it completely out in September and restarted after I found I'd been working the cables wrong.  I posted on my project page that I was so far into the knit that I was going to leave it, but changed my mind and ripped completely back to the beginning. I've worked the front, done the neck-shaping and rejoined the yarn. This project is ready to go back into its bag and continue as t.v. knitting.

Boxcars

You wouldn't think it would be good t.v. knitting with all the textures and cabling. I put markers in for each section at the beginning of the project and made little flip cards for the pattern repeats. You only have to cable twice out of a 12 row pattern repeat so as long as you mark your tally's as you go and remember to flip your cards it is a relatively easy pattern.  
I'm definitely not going to work the turtleneck as part of the pattern. I like knitwear that I can remove or put on as I need it. I wear a lot of cowls and scarves. I've also decided to seam up the sides so this will become my 1st sweater pattern for our 2012 Year of the Sweater KAL. I guess I'll have to stop calling it my poncho.
I still plan on knitting Cocoon with this yarn:

I think this yarn will look good with that pattern.  I also plan on getting back to my Color Your Own Cardigan for DH which has been languishing waiting for my mojo to return since last Spring.  I still have my chart that I colored in to mate with the yarns I have pinned to my corkboard:

I finished my jetties & quays cowl . It came in handy this past week with temps dropping into the 20's here. The grafting wasn't difficult. It was a bit tedious and took me several days in bits and spurts to finish. It wasn't perfect. I had more stitches on one needle than I had on the other so there's a slight twist, but I'm happy with it and you can't see it the way I have it folded.   

I got some yarn-to-die-for from Solstice Yarns. I cannot say enough about this yarn. It is so pretty and soft. I don't usually want to sqoosh yarns, but I can't seem to resist this one.

 After I got the yarn I was trolling through lace-weight patterns on Ravelry's database and came across one I'd saved to my Favorites awhile back: Jeweled Cowl. It's a free pattern and it has beads. 
I have some tubes of beads from when I ordered beads to knit Ice Queen. Of course when you start looking at beads to order you can't just order one color. The company I ordered the beads from WhimBeads has some really great bead mixes.  I got Size 6/0 Seed Beads when I ordered. 
I set the bead mixes I already have beside the yarn. At first I was really drawn to this combination:

I was thinking the reds and pinks would be smashing together with the golden yellow yarn. As I looked through all the projects that people have knitted, and their yarn/bead combinations, I thought that the yarn I have is so beautiful on its own I don't want the bead work to dominate the project so I ended up choosing this combination:

All golds, transparent yellows and ambers. I only had this one tube of the Golden Harvest Mix and it isn't being offered right now so I got some other tubes of Silver-lined Gold & Silver-lined Brown with an AB finish, and Transparent Topaz and Silver-lined Brown without the Aurora Borealis finish to make a mix together with what I already have.  I think it will be just right. ☺
There's a Mini-KAL going on right now on Lynne Ashton's Friends of the 28-row Scarf group on Ravelry if you're interested in knitting the Jeweled Cowl. It's always fun to have support and humorous chatter to go along with your knits. 

Happy Knitting, 
Sally