Projects Galore, plus FO: Platinum Tap Cowls

I feel like I have projects coming out of my ears right now.  The end of the dance year means I hand out "thank you" things to my dancers, which range from just handing out little dance bags of candy to my non-competition ballet kids to something a little more for my competition dancers.
My younger tap dance competition team did the dance "Jet Set" from the musical Catch Me if you Can, and their costumes (which won best costume at one competition) were reminiscent of the old school airplane stewardesses (don't worry, they were nice and modest).  To go along with the theme, I found an adorable pattern for the Pan-Am type of bag on Etsy, which I cut out and glued together over a day or two:

and filled them up with some sparkly hair binders and a couple of chocolates.  Instead of saying "Pan Am" on the side, I had the person I bought them from on Etsy put in "Red Tap", which is the name of the competition line these girls are on.

I handed them out last night, and the girls loved them!  Teaching middle school age means that I can get them pretty much anything sparkly and they love it.  Helpful. :)
I finished the Platinum Tap cowls for my three graduating seniors the day before I had to hand them out, and they turned out squishy and lovely.  The weather had a break in the clouds long enough for me to run outside for some pictures- you can kind of see the sparkles!

Pattern: Marian by Jane Richmond.  Again. :)
Yarn: Baby Alpaca Grande Glow from Plymouth Yarn.  I've made a cowl for a friend in this yarn before, and it is delicious to work with.  Absolutely nom.  I did a skein per cowl.

Time Frame: 3 cowls finished between May 29th and June 2nd.
Needles: Made on the borrowed size 17 needles from my friend Kim.  I almost want to just buy them from her, or get my own pair, because these 3 cowls bring my total number of cowls made from this pattern up to 6.  I can foresee more in the future...

Worst Part: Deciding 5 days before the last day of class to make 3 cowls for my seniors to hand out on the last day of class.  Mild time crunch.
Best Part: Finishing them (early!) and handing them out to 3 very excited and mildly emotional 18-year old girls, who all put them on immediately and kept saying how soft they were and how much they loved them.  They could have been just saying that, but I'm thinking (and at least hoping) that they weren't. :)

I also had a little bit of time yesterday to sit down and finish part of another project.  After too long, I finished the back section of the Dude Sweater!

I have to admit, I made a small mistake modification concerning the arm decreases on either side of the piece  (or, as you can see, lack thereof...).  I was so excited to just go-go-go with the color pattern, that I completely forgot to decrease for the arm holes on each side as I got closer to the top of the back, and didn't realize it until I was almost to the top.  When I found my mistake, I was waaaay too many rows past it to frog back to where I was supposed to put them in... oops...

(It's a pretty big piece of knitting- here is an Albert for size comparison!)
I don't think it's too big of a problem.  As in, I'm going to just keep knitting and hope for the best when I have to connect everything together.  Worse case scenario... I'll just deal with that situation when I get to it.  I'll just cast on for the first front piece in the next day or two here and get cracking on that.
Today is dress rehearsal day for the big end-of-year dance recital, and I'll be down at the performance hall from about noon until probably close to ten pm tonight.  I'm going to bring some knitting in the hopes I'll get more stripes done on my Affection Shawl, since dress rehearsals are usually a lot of "hurry up and wait".
Yay for lots of progress!