With a little help from my friend...

With normal levels of concentration restored and with a little help from my friend it's full steam ahead with this zipped cowl from Inside Crochet (Toffee Apple Cowl). Without the technology that allows you to take a photograph and email it all in a few seconds I doubt I'd have got past that tricky row 3. I must have done it half a dozen times before concluding that cables would have to wait.

Clearly there is still room for me to totally stuff it up between now and row 99, but I am hopeful. This is what I like about crochet. If it goes wrong it's usually only a row you have to rip out, and it's easy to pick it back up and try again. Whether or not the garment is actually functional and useful at the end of all this remains to be seen.

You may have noticed that I don't really like to join in with the many 'challenges' in blogland that require some level of commitment, usually on a monthly basis. Sometimes photographic, sometimes creative, all good challenges. However, I have decided to set myself a challenge and I'm sure others have done this before me. At Christmas I received a subscription to my favourite crochet magazine; Inside Crochet. I have to confess to liking the designs a bit more than Simply Crochet. Sometimes the riot of colours in SC make me gag. I'm going to attempt to make one item from each issue and complete it before the next one lands on my doormat. If successful it means I will have 11 or 12 completed projects to show for the year. There may be one or two extra projects I have to find time for too, particularly gifts, but I think this can be done.

So, the Toffee Apple Cowl is the first project and it's from Issue 62, which is where my subscription started. The recommended yarn is Stylecraft Alpaca DK. It's the same yarn I used for the Sunday Shawl I made last year. It's hairy but not too difficult to work with and it's lovely and soft.

It's the sort of project that requires peace and quiet, not two demanding dogs, an annoying senile cat, not to mention teenagers in and out so often we need a revolving front door, and then there's a husband who likes the sound of his own voice a little too much (he narrates films whether you want it or not and if you've chosen not to watch a programme but remain in the room he will tell you all about it anyway). If I get to the end it will be nothing short of a miracle!