Is It Cowl Season Yet?

I have started making some cowls for gifts. And for myself. I love the look of a scarf, but cowls are very practical. They never come undone. And they knit up quickly.

This is one I started because I love the look of feather and fan stitch. It's one of my all-time favorite stitches. (You cannot beat this stitch for an elegant-looking baby blanket, folks.) It's an easy pattern to memorize and it goes super quick. This cowl pattern is knit flat, with the cast on left live. Then the live ends are joined using kitchener stitch.

The only thing I really don't like about this problem is the provisional cast on. I really hate provisional cast on. In fact, I thought about not doing it and just seaming the cast on and cast off with something like mattress stich. Or just a regular ol' whip stitch. But, I decided the seamless look of the provisional cast on married with the kitchener stich would be worth the effort. So I had to YouTube provisional cast on.

Once I was knitting, all was ok. Like I said, this pattern goes fast. I knit this is about two nights' of TV watching, but it could've gone quicker if I'd been a little more attentive to it. Not sure exactly what this yarn is, btw. It's some wrapperless yarn I got from Michael's a while back.

The problem is picking up those live cast on stitches and putting them back on a needle. I almost wish I'd just cast them onto a circular needle and just let that needle hang there while I knit. So hard to see where the stitches are, especially when you have a pattern like feather and fan, which slant the stitches (decreasing and increasing) and creates holes with the yarnovers.

It took a long time to pick up these stitches. And when I was done, I was too irritated to fiddle with kitchener stitch. Maybe later.