It started with this. All true yarnies know that this is pretty much irresistable. As long as the bills are getting paid and food’s on the table, Knitted Wit Gumball fingering weight in this kitted-up configuration is going to end up in a knitter’s shopping cart.

Knitted Wit Gumball is the yarn that Shannon Squire recommends for her Amazing Technicolor Dream Cowl. It’s a slip stitch (mosaic) pattern that’s easily mastered. And the result?

The result is a wonderful cowl.

I made a few modifications, more on that in a bit, but have a closer look at the front. That’s if I can pry it off my glass head, because she’s gotten a bit possessive about it.

A raid into my mom’s and my grandmother’s button box found three mismatched buttons that completed the look.

This is knit as a tube. I used circular needles, rather than “magic loop.” I decided not to make this the project where I finally learn Judy’s Magic Cast On. I’ve tried that before, and I hear it’s a great cast-on. But I’ve watched the recommended videos and I still can’t make it work for me. Instead, I did an easy provisional crochet cast-on. (Here’s Lucy Neatby’s great video on that one.) When I was finished, I just “kitchenered” the cast-on together to flatten the tube. Kitchener was already called for at the end section, anyway, soon after the three buttonholes are knit on both halves of the tube. I found that the buttonholes needed to be stitched together to make the cowl easier to button.

Squire provided the same clearly important caution about the order of the colors in different ways. I found the directions confusing. Color A/Color B, AND 2nd color and 1st color, had my head spinning. In case you have the same problem, this is my interpretation of the directions arrived at by studying the pattern sample photos and other cowls posted on Ravelry.

Cast on in whatever color you want to start with, white in my case. The next pair of the gumball pattern (in mine) is skyblue, white, skyblue, white. Next is medium green, skyblue, medium green, skyblue. Next is light gray, medium green, light gray, medium green. Then, brown, light gray, brown, light gray. In other words, each time you start another gumball pattern, you start the pattern so that the color you used first in the previous set of rounds becomes the color you use second in the next set of rounds. Sigh. I’m not sure if that’s any more clear. But once I understood it that way, well, then I understood it.

Here’s a look at the back:

I knit the wider/shorter version, rather than the skinnier/longer version.