Yarn Along: Gilmore Girls A Year in the Life MKAL and "Maybe in Another Life"

I'm linking up with Ginny at the Small Things blog for Yarn Along, about two of the best things in life: books and knitting.

At the moment I'm still reading "The Masked City" by Genevieve Cogman, book two in the Invisible Library series about a group of alternate universe-traversing "librarians." (You can see a Christmassy photo of "The Masked City" here.) But my next read will be "Maybe in Another Life" by Taylor Jenkins Reid, a book that's pretty well-loved and which I'm expecting to enjoy. I've read a lot of fantasy and historical fiction lately, and I'm in the mood for a fun contemporary novel.

So... I should be done with my Gilmore Girls A Year in the Life MKAL cowl by now, but partway through the final clue I decided to rip the whole thing out and start over. I cheated and looked at a some photos of completed projects, and I decided that the triangular shawl-like shape was just not for me. I'm not sure it's quite my style anyway (part of the reason I seldom wear the gorgeous shawls I've knitted) and for another, we'll be in Hawaii for two and a half more years, and while that shape is on trend now, it may not be when I finally get a chance to wear the cowl. The yarn is so scrumptious (and expensive!) that I didn't want to waste it on a cowl I'd never wear.

Here's a picture of the cowl as written, from the designer:

(source -- Marinade Designs)

There was no easy way to get rid of the triangle (apparently it's nearly impossible to pick out ribbing from the cast-on edge and I'd have had to undo several inches) without whipping out scissors, and I needed to re-do clue #3 anyway because of a mistake in the pattern (argh!), so I decided to start over and knit it as a regular double-loop cowl. It was a bit tough to rip out all that work, but the cowl was great TV knitting and I figured a couple nights of watching "Gilmore Girls" season 7 would have me caught up again -- and indeed, I'm already nearly through the final clue. I think I'm going to need to add some length before Kitchener-ing my loop together, but I have an idea for that -- I'm going to do a section of contrast color garter stripes, like the ones that frame each lace panel, one of each color with the established six rows of MC ribbing in between.

Along those same lines of wanting to make sure it's a project I'll actually wear, I also made a change to the yarn colors, which I got in a kit specifically made for the pattern from the Knitted Wit Etsy shop. I completely adore the main color, aspen forest, and the first three contrast colors. As you can see in the designer's photo above, the final color was a bright orange, but I decided to sub in some leftover Malabrigo teal. Orange is one of the few colors that I almost never wear, whereas teal is my favorite color, and it'll match my winter coat (whenever I get around to wearing that again).

Here's a very poorly-lit photo I snapped right before ripping out attempt #1. You can get an idea here what the end result will look like. I do really like the colorfulness, the texture of the main color, and the lace panels.