Felted Tweed Aran, the whole wheat toast of yarn.

This is the second post of my travel knits for Accessory Week here at Knitionary.  The best travel knits are knit in one piece, require no fitting and have an easy to remember pattern.  This one is by far the fastest and easiest of all my travel knits, plus it's beautiful.

The pattern is the Walking Rib Cowl by Churchmouse Yarns.  It's a stair stepped k2, p2 rib pattern that is easily memorized and so very fast.   I love that Churchmouse loves Rowan as much as I do, they often design patterns showcasing their yarn.  This time they chose Rowan Felted Tweed Aran.  It's funny, as many times as I've used the Felted Tweed DK, I've never used the aran weight.  Now I'm a convert.  FT Aran is the whole wheat toast of yarn.  It's earthy and hearty and substantial yet still refined.  The four plies seem to be felted together, hence the name.   One thing I appreciate is that in all the color ways, the tweedy bits are neutrals.  I think tweeds are prettier that way.  Once I knit with a black tweed whose tweedy bits were mostly neon red and lime green.  I spent half my time pulling them out but it was as futile as pushing back an ocean wave, they just kept on coming.  I love this charcoal gray with snippets of white and pale gray.