Louet Fall Collection: Emin by Anne Podlesak

Photo © Caro Sheridan

I hope everyone is having a great holiday weekend; I am excited to be today's stop for the Louet Fall Collection Blog tour! If you haven't seen their new fall collection, click here to check it out on the Louet Blog. There are plenty of knit-worthy sweaters and accessories for fall (and even some crochet-worthy ones, too!).

When I signed up for the tour, I immediately went digging through my yarn stash to find all of my GEMS yarn - turns out, I have quite a bit of Sport on hand! As luck would have it, I had the exact same color of yarn shown for the Emin Cowl, Hat, and Mittens; it also happens to be one of my absolute favorite colors.

Though you probably noticed that all three pieces are listed separately on Ravelry, the actual pattern includes instructions to make all 3, making the $7.50 purchase price an absolute steal!

There are two size options for the cowl, and I made the smaller version, which is a close-fitting 20" circumference that will be great for layering under a scarf or wearing around the house. I ended up knitting the entire project in just 3 days; I'm sure folks who practice project monogamy could even finish it faster than that!

The smaller-sized cowl took less than a skein of yarn, and the larger size (40" circumference)  calls for two. Should you want to make a matching hat or mittens, you'll need 2 more skeins of yarn (one for the hat and one of the mittens).

The stitch pattern is charted and it's ideal for cabling without a cable needle, which I opted to do for my project. It was fairly easy to memorize and keep track of where I was in the chart simply by looking at my work, which is probably why it knit up so fast.

The only modification I made was in the cast-on; while the pattern calls for the long-tail cast-on, I opted to use the crochet cast-on because it more closely matches the bound-off edge (note: while pretty much every tutorials talks about using this cast-on provisionally with waste yarn, I highly recommend trying it with your actual yarn to create a nice, neat edge without using a ton of yarn!).

Given the circumference of the smaller size, however, it does seem like a stretchier cast-on such as the one called for is way more appropriate. I happen to have a pretty small head, so my finished cowl is quite easy to slip on and off, but I wouldn't recommend substituting a less stretchy cast-on if you are concerned about fit.

The stitch definition provided by the high twist of the GEMS yarn is quite striking, as you can see in the photo above. In addition to textured stitches, it's also great for colorwork and stripes, as I discovered with my own recent design in GEMS, the Chittery Chattery Socks.

If you're planning on gift knitting this holiday season, GEMS is a superwash yarn that is soft enough for next-to-skin wear, yet hard-wearing and pill resistant. You can find out more about GEMS here on the Louet blog!