Late winter, early spring?

The sun is shining from a clear, blue sky all day long... and so it has for the latest few weeks. I have observed the snow free patches in the garden growing bigger day by day. Still it is far too cold outside to give in to the desire for wearing open toe shoes and no coat. The thermometer stated -7 Celcius degrees this morning, so my newest hat, my very old coat AND a brand new neckwarmer are still necessities around here. This neckwarmer has a very simple design and is constructed to drape outwards at the bottom to keep the lower neck warm as well. To make this happen, without doing any increases, it is finished with a few rounds of seed st. The pattern is all yours; scroll down to find it :o)

NECK WARMER

Yarn: Sulka, Du store alpakka (50 g Petrol S209 and 60 g Seagreen S236)
Needles: 8 mm 60 cm circulars and 5 mm 40 or 60 cm circulars

The neckwarmer is knit in the round, from the top down. This method allows you to easily change it to preferred size - just keep knitting the stripe pattern until you got the desired length (which of course requires more yarn than stated here).
Cast on 78 st on 8 mm needles. Change to 5 mm needles and knit 7 rounds of 2 x 2 rib.

Change to 8 mm needles as you also change colour. * Knit 2 rounds, then change colour again, knit 2 rounds*. Repeat this stripe pattern 6 times (ending with the rib colour).

Change colour, knit 2 rounds.

Change colour, knit ONE rond and change to 5 mm needles. Then knit one round of seed st (= knit one, purl one).

Change colour, knit seed st for 2 rounds.

Change colour, knit seed st for 2 rounds and cast off very loosely using 8 mm needles (ending with the rib colour).

Weave in loose ends and enjoy!

Below you can see proofe of my laziness/cleverness; I used the long tail of yarn from the last dark seed st stripe to get enough yarn to cast off the last 7 st...