I went to SXSW Interactive in Austin, Texas earlier this year, and while I was there, I was lucky enough to be able to visit Hill Country Weavers (not just once, but twice!), and amongst my haul of goodies I bought two balls of Berocco Ultra Alpaca with the intention of making a nice cuddly wrap.

Amazingly, for me, the result was actually a nice cuddly wrap (as opposed to buying yarn for a project, having it languish in stash hotel for months then doing something else entirely with it) and the yarn was so lovely that I started working on it almost as soon as I got home.

I came up with a stripe pattern that went:

5 rows teal 3 rows purple 1 row teal 3 rows purple 5 rows teal

then reversed the colour bands

Luckily for me, I had just enough yarn to make it work and finished it over Easter, on a visit to my boyfriend's parents.

I so desperately wanted to finish it so I could wear it down there, envisioning a nice crisp spring walk along the beach wearing it, that I crocheted the whole 5 hour journey from London to Devon, complete with over the ear LED light so I could continue in the dark. Whenever we drew up next to another car, I kept getting funny looks. Can't imagine why.

It hasn't had much use this year, but I dug it out this morning because it's been such miserable weather here, and this is just the thing for a horrible grey day.