Beginners cowl

Another beginner-friendly project – the Explorer cowl:

Just in case it’s not apparent from the picture there are actually four cowls here. They are made in King Cole Explorer super chunky, using colours Drake (x2), Cook and Marco Polo on a 12mm hook. The cowls are constructed as a continuous spiral of linen stitch, so there is no seam; and all the lovely colour-play comes from the variegated yarn, so there are only two ends to sew in for each cowl.

Mine are 57 stitches round, which gave me a cowl of 28cm wide and 15cm high. The yarn is 80m per ball, and I just kept going until I ran out of yarn, so they weigh 100g! I would like the chance to make one with slightly more than 80m of yarn, so am on the look-out for a good substitute.. Ideas anyone?

Uist Wool cowls

We had a wee jaunt to Uist last week and I came back with some lovely yarn-cakes made of various shades of their undyed wool. This is what I have made with them:

They are Moebius cowls and I am very pleased with how they have turned out. They are based on the Laura Cracknell’s PPHOP pattern and each cowl took just over 40g of yarn.

I have made a couple of these in other thicknesses of yarn so for reference my starting chain plus foundation row is 58cm long. For Chunky yarn I use an 8mm hook and chain 71, for aran yarn a 6mm hook and chain 91, and for the Uist wool dk a 5mm hook and chain 99. The chunky yarn has only two rows of lattice in the first block, aran and dk yarns have three rows as per the pattern.

June challenge – Moebius strip cowl

Have you heard of ‘pennies per hour of pleasure’? It’s an initiative set up to raise funds for Medecins sans Frontieres for their charitable work. Designers donate a knitting or crochet pattern, and people who use the pattern donate a sum in proportion to the pleasure they got from making it. The pattern I chose is the Moebius cowl by Laura Cracknel, and this is how it turned out:

The cowl on the on the left in Drops Big Delight colour 16 ‘Blackberry’ and the one on the right is made in West Yorkshire Spinners Fusions Aran colour 862 ‘Autumn mix’, both on a 6mm hook. I started with a chain of 90 stitches and each cowl weighs 75g.

West Yorkshire Spinners fusion cowl

This is the third (and possibly last for a while!) in a series of cowls that I have made using variegated yarn:

The yarn is the utterly lovely West Yorkshire Spinners Aire Valley Fusion aran in their Autumn mix colourway. It took one and a half 100g balls to make the cowl, using the pattern here and a 6mm hook.

Don’t you just love those autumn colours?

Scheepjes Sokkenwol purple cowl

This is the second in a series of cowls I have made in variegated yarn:

It is in Scheepjes Sokkenwol colour 969, using the pattern here and a 6mm hook. The colour progression is much more subtle than the turquoise colourway, and I am particularly pleased with it. It took two 100g balls to make the cowl, which is 10 ‘bobbles’ wide.

Cosy cowl

You might remember that a while ago I made a cowl and said I wouldn’t use the pattern again? Well it is time for me to eat my words:

I think it was the yarn that really changed my mind. It is Scheepjes Noorse Sockkenwol Colour in shade 952 ‘Black grey blue’. In fact it is a lovely mix of blues, greys and turquoises, and the colour progression worked out really well with the finished piece looking like stripes.

I used this stitch pattern and made it on a 6mm hook, which gave a very fluid fabric. It took exactly two 100g balls to make the cowl, and the finished product feels soft and cosy. What’s not to like about that?

I’ve started so I’ll finish

This project has been an interesting lesson in perseverance for me. I have wanted to make a cowl for some time, I had seen some suitable yarn a while ago, and recently a friend taught me a new stitch that I thought would be just right.
The stitch is a lovely open weave, with alternate rows of bobbles for texture, and in chart form it looks like this:

To be honest I think the cowl is quite successful:

So why do I sound so hesitant? I am usually quite a fan of straightforward repetitive crochet, I think it is a useful stress-buster, and can be quite soothing. I am afraid this one became boring very quickly, and I really only finished it out of sheer doggedness. Hopefully I will make another cowl at some point, and next time I will remember to find a pattern with enough variety in it to keep me awake.
Made in dy choice ‘La Paz’ polyacryl alpaca and mohair in Denim on a 5.5mm hook. It took 200g to make the cowl.