ringing in a sweet new year: honey cake + shelburne cowl

it's new year's day, and we decided to kick off the new year in the best way possible: with cake!

we were invited out to a new year's day brunch, and thought it would be a good occasion to try smitten kitchen's honey cake. it's a bit of a huge recipe but absolutely simple technique-wise, and i was looking forward to having three loaf cakes - one to take, one for home, and one to save for a rainy day (tomorrow, maybe?). and honey cake to guarantee a sweet new year is a lovely tradition.

i soon realised however that i only have two loaf pans! so i went with the two layer cakes opetion instead.

i read the notes, especially observing the update on leavening to solve the problem of the fallen middle. however:

wah.

i salvaged it by gamely chopping the fallen center out of the cake, slicing the remaining edge pieces into neat rectangles, and arranging them on a plate. i felt bad bringing it, but the reaction was overwhelmingly, "is that honey cake? yay!" so i guess it was all right.

next up was finishing my cable rib cowl.

i decided to go with the drawstring hat option, because why not?

then i tried to take a picture of what it looks like as a hat, indoors in poor light, with my own shaky hands holding the camera, with varying degrees of failure.

ah well.

shelburne cowl (inspired by shelburne mitts)

need: 2 skeins rowan big wool, and a 5mm circ

gauge: 14 sts = 4 inches in cable rib pattern, unstretched

cast on 60 sts using long tail technique, or other stretchy cast on of your choice. join to work in round.

row 1: (k2; p1) repeat till end of round.

row 2: (k into second stitch, then k into first stitch, then slide both off needle together; p1) repeat till end of round.

repeat these two rows until work measures 8 1/2" ending with row 2.

drawstring row: (k2; yo k2tog; k1; p1) repeat till end of round.

next row: as for row 2.

work 5 more rows in pattern, ending with row 1. bind off in pattern using stretchy bind off of your choice, such as yo; k1; slip first stitch and yo over last stitch. weave in ends.

cast on three sts for i-cord. k3, slip 3 purlwise to left needle, hold yarn behind. repeat till measures 34". weave in ends. thread through holes in cowl.

stash busting

finished the shelburne mittens today!

i still have close to three skeins of the rowan big wool left in my stash, too. i've had this for an embarrassing amount of time - nine or ten years? eek.

still, it's getting some love now. and based on the fact that the last, lost cowl i knit of this took two full skeins, i predict that the cowl i've just cast on will use up all of the rest.

i'm using the same stitch pattern as for the mitts - p1 k2, with the k2 doing a cable twist on every second row. it's super stretchy, with more character than a plain rib. i may do a drawstring to make it hat-able as well, i think there's a pattern in one of my vintage books for a hat that is basically a tube with a drawstring - maybe in the lux book? we'll see when i get there.

whether cowl or hat, it will be a great companion to these thick warm mitts!