Yesterday it was as if the crochet wind was at my back.
After what seemed a too early start to the day, I eventually had everything that “absolutely positively needed to be done today” done, and I was able to focus my efforts on some crochet pleasures, namely, designing a cowl to coordinate with second scrap-busters hat I had recently completed.
Using a 6.5 mm hook (aka K hook) and the same color yarns as I had for the hat, in short order I came up with a design that worked and all that was left to do was to crochet it, and crochet it I did.
By nightfall, I had nearly completed all of the crochet work, and while I was out walking the dog, my cat, Stripes, took advantage of my absence and appropriated the cowl:

This morning, after removing as much cat hair as I could, I finished what little crochet work was left, and then did an inventory of the ends to be woven in:

While the day got away from me here and there, eventually, I returned to the cowl with a bent-tipped yarn needle in hand, and I made relatively quick work of the renegade ends:

and suddenly, the cowl was in the ta-done column:

Here is how it looked with the hat that inspired the effort:

Since this is intended as a gift for someone who is not me, I am hoping that my hat fever will not break until I have made my own scrap-buster hat with a coordinating cowl that I can wear wherever I go.