Oh Knitty, you know me too well.

***Originally published September 21st, 2012***

Did you know the new Deep Fall issue of Knitty is out?  I’m super excited about this one for two reasons: one is, the Deep Fall issue is always my favorite, with tons of cold-weather projects like sweaters, scarves, hats — fun creative takes on old classic projects.

But secondarily, Yarnia has an ad in this issue’s pattern pages!  It’s always the luck of the draw, which pattern your ad will get placed with, and once it’s there, they’re partnered forever.  Which is why I’m totally ecstatic that we are headlining for the BFF Cowls in this issue.

Not only does this look like a super fun, relatively simple, and functional fall project, but I love creative knits like this one, where it’s a little more involved than just sitting down by yourself with a pair of needles and cranking something out according to the instructions.

This is a buddy project — you find a friend, you each choose a color of yarn that you want to work in, and you each knit up these two different-but-complementary cowls in the same yarn.  Then, you trade one-for-one, and join them together to make your double-cowl complete, and one that will always remind you of your BFF when you wear it!

So when my friend Dory suggested that we embark on this project together, I thought it was a fantastic idea.  Not only is she one of my oldest friends (we met at summer camp when we were 14!), but — being the most awesome, creative, and quick graphic designer that a shop owner could ask for — she was in fact the one who whipped out the ad that headlines the BFF pattern, so it seemed doubly appropriate.

I put her in charge of the color choices (yellow and grey!  I’m into it!) and got to work.

First, the yellows.

I really wanted to make a nice creamy, bright yellow to complement the greys, so I put together a bunch of different fibers — bamboo, wool, rayon, and acrylic — to build up to an aran weight yarn with a variety of shades, something that would be soft, squishy, and warm.

Then came the greys.

Same idea here, mixing wool, alpaca, rayon, and bamboo.  I wanted both of the colors to be semi-solid so as not to obscure the designs in the pattern, but with enough color depth to give it that unique Yarnia flair.

I love grey.

The key when you’re doing a project like this (and even more crucial when you’re using two different yarns alternating in the same piece of fabric) is to make sure the two yarns are the same weight, or thickness.  Back when I used to live in Montreal and excitedly visited my old fave yarn shop on a weekly basis, the one that inspired me to open Yarnia nearly five years ago, the woman who owned the place casually did this right in front of me when comparing two yarns, and it blew my mind.

Wrap one yarn around the other, twist them in opposite directions, and look to see if there is any difference in the weight.  If there is, fix it.

I did a little math to see how affordable this project was.  Turns out both of these yarns cost almost exactly the same, bringing the grand total for this project to a whopping…$42.15!

That seems totally reasonable for 4 cowls, 2 colors, and 2 tokens of forever friendship.

We’ll update you after the cast-on!

(Do you have a BFF you want to make this project with?  Stay tuned — we’ll be having a Knit-Along for this one!)