Dudes, I rock.  You’re always the last to know, right? This is the finale of this summer’s have-my-cake-and-eat-it-too knitting. The conclusion of Coachella!

Having finished Agave satisfactorily (I wear it as I type), I diverted all remaining yarn to the pursuit of Coachella.

From these disparate parts, I create...

Which meant tiny scrap balls and a rogue i-cord from a project long forgotten, joined together with a robust Russian join.

...a beautiful unity.

Before I cast on Agave, I made sure I had enough yarn for Coachella by taking it almost to completion. Once I finished Agave, I diverted all remaining yarn to Coachella, and I got a couple of extra inches in length, which is awesome. This might be my second-favourite bit — check out how little I have left after casting off:

That's all she wrote.

I love it. I used EZ’s sewn cast off (great tutorial from a 2006 Knitty) for the first time, too: it’s fantastic for a rolled hem, because it’s incredibly neat and stretchy. The instructions recommend having yarn three times the length of your proposed cast off edge, a rule I always hate. Does that mean with the edge stretched out? Does that mean leaving the edge limp? Should you leave the yarn limp too? What if I need a really stretchy cast off?  While I was casting off, I kept checking again, anxious that I’d have to undo it and unpick a whole round to get my cast off in order: as it was, I had just enough. Take a moment to look at that photo again. That’s all that was left. Awyeah. I used to have six balls of South West Trading Company’s Bamboo in purple: now I have a damn sexy skirt and two funky tops.

Oh, y;know, just hanging out...

The racer back on Coachella is kinda what sold me on the pattern right from the start. I love it. Racer backs are sexy as hell.

I don't stop talking for photos

Oh, wait, I forgot about the cowl neck. Cowl necks are even sexier than racer backs. Maybe it was the cowl neck that hooked me.

Pattern: Coachella, from Knitty

Mods: Heaps!  My gauge was completely different to that recommended in the pattern, so I did some back-of-the-napkin maths and figured that the stitch count I wanted for the first few steps was roughly the same as the stitch count for the medium size. So I more or less followed the medium size pattern, but with a finer gauge.  And then threw in a couple of extra hip increases as it got longer.

Yarn: South West Trading Company’s Bamboo, in purple. boy howdy, I’ve had this yarn for yonks.  I bought a butt-tonne of it and have had quite a few false starts here and there.  Now it’s an Intolerable Cruelty, an Agave tank and a Coachella, and I think that’s pretty damn cool.