Victory is Mine! FO: Beech Wood

Friday evening I began to feel guilty for giving up on my aunt's cowl. So I decided to give it another go. Very late Saturday night I cast off Beech Wood and despite my sore hands I'm glad.

Pattern: Beech Wood by Ilga Leja
Yarn: Elen Cashmere
Needles: Knitpicks Options US6

The pattern is really easy and creative. It really helps the yarn which is such a plain color. I can't say I enjoyed knitting this at all. The yarn really hurt my hands and I hate deadline knitting. These are both my fault but I do love the finished product. Towards the end I was just so tired and sore that I started to ignore the pattern substituting some of the purl rows with faster knit rows. I think the randomness created by this is nice. I couldn't find a nice pin so I added a button to the cowl. I think it was well received. I'll have to make one for myself someday. Now I really am done the gift knitting and I think this year I'm going to scale it back a bit. I think every other year is fair enough. I need to get through my sweater and sock stash now.