First time cowl knitting. My daughter picked the pattern and the color. I was totally taken by the sheer number of projects this pattern has.

The pattern is extremely simple and yet…. I ended up frogging twice! I have knitted more complicated patterns with no problem, but one mistake e.g. purled 2 instead of purl 1, slip 1 and the pattern no longer looks like it should.
Confusion
The instructions call for 26 inch circs for 22 inch cowl. Since I had only 36 inch circs, went shopping and the circulars come either in 16 inch or 24 inch lengths. The LYS sold me the 16 inch needles because 24” would be a stretch, she was surprised of the 26” recommendation. I did not find any discussion regarding this. I guess experienced knitters knew what to do. I have not knitted in the round much, so I am a newbie at the cord lengths needed. Incidentally, since I have sore fingertips, she was also extremely helpful in my trying different tips and I bought Lykke wooden, very nice to work with. The helpful shop is in Westfield, NJ.
Do Ewe Knit.

I joined the round with no twists, and started knitting away when I realized that the pattern does not look like the picture. Spotted the error and frogged about 6 rows. Picked up the stitches and ended up 1 stitch short AND twisted edge with 3 rows intact. Talk about frustration.

So here I am 3 days later starting all over again. Hope it goes well. This time, I put stitch markers every 20 stitches, so if I made a mistake, I only had max 20 stitches to frog.
After a few rows, the pattern emerged and there was no need for markers except for the start of the round.

Half way through, I noticed a line where the round begins, so searched forums for any guidance, could not quite find it, so posted a query. Several ravelers gave excellent tips and I followed knottyrugbymom’s advise for moving the start of the row by 1 stitch on every knit row. ( turtlegirl76 pointed me to her notes) Yes the line disappeared, but now I had a diagonal traveling pattern. She had suggested starting with purl 1, slip 1 sequence, since I was at slip 1, purl 1 sequence, I started with that. Did not like the look, so switched to purl 1, slip 1 on the next round. It does make a difference. The p1, sl1 is less noticeable.

The last two pictures show the difference. 2nd last is with sl1, purl1. The diagonal is noticeable. The last one is purl1, sl1. Not so noticeable.
Murphy’s law: Right after you post a query about the line, you will find the forum post discussing exactly that ! Next time I will be more diligent in looking up forums.

03/17/18: Finally finished ! Used the long tail bind off. Followed this tutorial on Youtube.

Will block tomorrow. Off to read forums about blocking.

Finally my daughter gets her gift, one project of mine that actually finished in a reasonable time :)..
Moral of fretting over the line showing or seam not as invisible as it should be: Unless you are giving a gift to a knitter or you are a perfectionist, don’t spend endless hours over such stuff. My daughter didn’t even look it over. She was all smiles at the finished piece, wore it right away, soft and beautiful, her comment.

Now my granddaughter wants one ;) just like mama’s. She is all of 2 and a half.