Have you looked at the Nennir Cowl from Knitty yet?
This is a fine piece of work – the pattern is worked in one direction, so you don’t have to make little squares and piece them together to the the symmetrical motif; it just happens as you knit it. You use (one of my all time favorite techniques!) ring cables, also known as continuous cables. I appreciate how Lucy Hague incorporated garter stitch on the edges, and got her motif so squared up. Getting this sort of cable to mirror top and bottom is not hard, but getting those rectangular stitches to have turn symmetry can be tricky. And Lucy nailed it.
Which gives me a chance to plug my tutorials page with the tutorial on starting the bottom of a ring cable, and ending one.
Yes! Really, it’s just a matter of a fancy increase and decrease!
And a cowl is a lovely small piece to learn tricky new things on, and won’t over whelm your lap with hot project just as the weather gets warmer in the Northern Hemisphere.
And if you happen to knit in the Southern Hemisphere, a cowl is still a fun project!