recipe for a quick gift

I love to knit for friends.  I also love to knit gifts and my notion of  'knitworthy' is far more flexible than many (see Franklin Habit's succinct and noteworthy flow-chart here).  I love to knit items that don't need to fit - cowls, scarves, shawls, the occasional pair of mitts.  Hats are tricky - my gauge can be loose and head size becomes a factor.

With these things in mind, I gathered leftover fingering weight yarns using a gradient/fade idea to knit a cowl as a goodbye gift for a colleague and friend at work.  I had already knit two others and don't like to knit the same pattern twice.  Inspired by the mini-skein sets like SweetGeorgia's Party of Five I made my own mini-skein set of five and cast on.  The finished product combines 5 yarns and 6 different stitch patterns to make a single-loop cowl:

Improvised recipe:
Started with Manos del Uruguay Alegria (gray): 
cast on 144 stitches, knit 1x1 rib for 10 rows 
- broken seed stitch for 12 rows, then 4 rows of st. St. To stripe in new colour 
Switch to Noro Sock (green/gray/blue) 
- 10 rows of lace mesh, then 4 rows of garter plus 2 rows to stripe in new colour 
Switch to Bulletproof Sock (SweetGeorgia Yarns) (blue) 
- 3x1 rib for 2 rows, st st. for 4 rows 
Change to Koigu KPPPM (Variegated) 
- 4 rows garter, 2 rows eyelet pattern, repeat x3
Switch to Viola sock (brown) 
- 8 rows 1x1 ribbing, cast off

Stitch patterns can be found in any stitch dictionary - I looked them up online on various websites, or used ones I had recently used for other projects.  

I have no desire to design things, just wanted to use up some stash for a quick gift.  I like following a pattern, and find improvising my own a little stressful, so I am back to a pattern for my next project!