Noro Kureyon, also known as the most fun ever.

I recently had the thoroughly delightful experience of attending a half-off sidewalk sale at Knitterly in Petaluma, CA, one of my favorite local yarn shops.

I was particularly thrilled to find two matching skeins of Noro Kureyon, in a colorway that immediately made me think of this awesome girl:

© Bonnie Kate Wolf

This is Bonnie Kate, or thesunshinechild on Ravelry. Fortunately, she's a knitter too, so she understood that while this yarn was ultimately going to end up with her, I absolutely could not let her knit with it. I just couldn't be that selfless.

I've knit with Noro before, but it was Cash Iroha, which is all solid colors. Kureyon is a totally different ballgame. I have never had this much fun with yarn, trying to anticipate the next color change, only to be surprised by a ply of yellow in the blue or brown in the peach.

I cast on 180 stitches, joined in the round, and alternated rows of garter stitch starting at the same end of each skein. I had to fudge it a little at the beginning, since one skein had a length of yellow where the other had only blue, but once the color changes were more or less lined up I stopped making decisions and just knitted!

The result was quite an excellent cowl!

© Bonnie Kate Wolf

I'd love to do more variations on this - with three skeins, or in a shorter cowl. The color changes would look so different every time!

What's your favorite way to use Noro?