Embossed Exchange Motif

This is cool.  This is the start of Marilyn Porter's Take It or Leaf It cowl pattern.  The pattern repeat is an embossed exchange motif, which I've been wanting to do since I read about them in September.  I took the photo in the morning sun to emphasize just how embossed the surface looks.  It is embossed because the knit stitches sit higher than the purled stitches, and the decrease stitches sit even higher than that.  It is an exchange motif because the increases and decreases are placed so that one leaf widens while the adjacent leaf narrows.  In this pattern, the leaf appears to become overlapped instead of narrowing.

I am using my five strand yarn on the theory that if five strand yarn makes knitted cables stand out, it should make embossed exchange motifs stand out too.

I've kept some five strand yarn to knit into cables.  I'll get to it.  Later.

Unfortunately, in the sk2p decrease all five of the strands look bad in the passed over loop, as if they have separated into individual strands.  Perhaps spinning this yarn structure in a different type of wool would give me more cohesion there.

I found the k3tog decrease to be very awkward.  I use a small crochet hook to pull the yarn through three loops knitwise instead.

I made a mistake in the pattern, tinked four rounds or so, reknit, and discovered another mistake.  I'm taking a little break before I address the cowl again.