A cowl of my own

I finally finished my very first whole project made from my own handspun yarn.  I used my merino/cashmere blend that I made a couple of weeks ago in the Tour de Fleece. I didn’t spin a large amount of it, given that it was my first attempt and it was only around a fingering weight, so it was a little tricky to find something I wanted to make with it.  Here is the finished results:

Loose and floppy

Or pinned back with a broach

If you would like to try to recreate this project, here is a very loosy-goosy version of a pattern:

A Cowl of My Own

Yarn:

Since I used a handspun yarn of my own creation, I will suggest using a commercially manufactured yarn. Two that I know will give you a great result are:

• Filcolana Gotlandsk Pelsuld (on Ravelry)
• Rowan Scottish Tweed DK (on Ravelry)

Alternatively, you can choose any other DK weight yarn with a softer animal fiber content (alpaca, cashmere, anything else luxurious next to your skin is great).  As far as color suggestions go, something with some variance would look really nice, but a self stripping yarn with stark color contrasts between colors might make you look a little like Bozo the Clown and we wouldn’t want that.

Technical Stuff:

Like I said before, this was a little adhoc and any gauge guidelines are going to rely heavily on the yarn you choose, so throw caution into the wind and use your better judgment on this one. 

Needle:

5 mm circular (40 cm in length) or you can always use DPN if you are more comfortable with that

The Actual Pattern:

The number of stitches you cast on is going to depend on how floppy you want your end results.  In the pictures above, I worked 96 stitches in each row. If you want it really floppy cowl shoot for a lot of stitches (112 +). 

Using a long tail cast on, CO stitches in multiple of 16. Join to work in the round.

For the first round, place a stitch marker at the beginning of the round and knit one round.

For the second round, k5, yo, k1, yo, k5, ssk, k1, k2tog and repeat that sequence for the rest of the round (in my example that’s 6 sets of this pattern – 96/16=6).

Repeat rows 1-2 until you reach the desired length.  End on an odd round (all knits) and cast off.

If you are a chart reader, maybe this will help:

In order to make look just right, make sure to block out your new creation when you are done.  Happy knitting!

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