Code Breaker Cowl

I am very excited to share a new pattern with you today. My Code Breaker Cowl pattern is in this month's issue of Knit Now magazine, which went on sale in the UK yesterday.

The cowl is a feast of intertwined cables (I designed it during my cable obsession at the start of the year). The cowl looks complex, but the cables are only every fourth row, and the pattern has both written and charted instructions, so if you have any experience with cables you should be able to knit it - I called it Code Breaker as without the key it looks tricky, but once you have that, it's actually pretty straightforward!

Just another manic Monday

Monday was one of those days. We were late for playgroup as when we got to the car park my son decided he didn't want to go to playgroup after all; I forgot to return my library books, even though they were due back last Friday; my son fell over twice; when we got to the end of our lunch my son then complained that I hadn't shared my scone with him, so we had to buy another scone to share between the three of us... And the weather was horrible. And to top it all off, I accidentally ate a one mouthful of a Maryland chocolate chip cookie, so have failed on one Lent resolution (I shall continue not to eat chocolate until Eatser, but it is not good to have failed so soon. Turns out I think those cookies are more biscuit than chocolate).

So by mid-afternoon I decided I was in need of a treat. Earlier in the day I had been browsing chunky weight patterns on Pinterest and found a cowl that I thought would be perfect for my February yarn box yarn from Devon Sun Yarns, the Accidental Cowl by Elizabeth Trantham. A super-easy cowl, just double and half double crochet to make a long double-looped cowl. So when we got home from our supermarket shopping I fished the yarn out of the cupboard and wound it into a lovely soft squishy ball.

I then set about crocheting a couple of tension swatches. The pattern called for a 9 mm hook, but I only had a 10 mm hook, so I made a small circular swatch, then measured it. The pattern itself doesn't state gauge, but it was easy enough to calculate at about 5.75 sts to 4 inches. My tension was nowhere near: 8.5 sts to 4 inches. So I went to find my next biggest hook, 15 mm, which seemed excessive, but worked pretty near perfectly, with 6 sts to 4 inches. I suspect this yarn will stretch on blocking, but didn't want to cut it, so am risking the stretching - it's for a cowl, so size really isn't critical. I recalculated the stitch count based on my gauge to be 81 sts, and put the yarn in my bag ready for my Monday evening knitting group.

Swatch one: 10 mm hook

Swatch two: 15 mm hook

While I was making tea I thought I'd try something new and use a foundation-chain-less foundation chain as several friends have said it's much easier than working into the chain. I found lots of tutorials, but some were distinctly lacking on detail. After a bit of playing I got the foundation to work by following Purl Bee's tutorial. But that was a single foundation row, whereas I needed a half-double foundation row, so I worked through a set of written instructions and my test cast on worked first time!

I started the cowl at my Monday night knitting group (which I love; the people are lovely and we're all very good at encouraging each other, and most weeks there is pudding!), and while the cast on was much faster than crocheting into the chain, it still wasn't quick to cast on 81 sts! I got there in the end. The cowl was quick and easy to work up, and I loved watching the pattern from the variegated yarn appear. I didn't quite follow the pattern, and actually alternated double and half-double crochet (I had done the tension swatches wrong accidentally, but liked how the fabric turned out). I didn't quite get the cowl done before I went home at 10, but I did finish once I got home; I worked until I ran out of yarn, so my cowl has 6 rows, finishing on a double crochet row.

The cowl is simple but effective. I love the drapiness, and it being wrapped double means it's really cozy. I'm skipping the blocking step - I put it on to take photos and haven't got round to taking it off again!

Indie Design GAL: Alhambra cowl

What feels like a lifetime ago (pre-children), I spent three years living in the beautiful city of Cambridge. I loved to roam the city in my free time, admiring the assorted architecture, watching the world go by and breathing in the air in the many green spaces that are scattered across the city. There are many things of note in Cambridge (including the world-renowned university), but here are a few:

1. It is old
2. It is beautiful
3. It is flat, which brings us on to
4. Everyone cycles, me included. I have never cycled anywhere else; Cambridge is very well suited to it, a lot of the streets are not really wide enough for cars, and the lack of hills makes it pretty easy. My bike got a puncture the week before I left Cambridge and I have still not fixed it over 5 years on (I blame the Durham hills)!
5. In the winter it can get rather cold!

I have vivid memories of a particularly cold winter, when every morning for a week I cycled to work in freezing fog; it was horrible! With this in mind I decided to hunt out a cowl pattern for a friend who still lives in Cambridge. I had the yarn in mind, a skein of Malabrigo Rasta, leftover from my Arabella scarf, so looked through the superchunky cowl patterns in the Indie Design GAL on Ravelry (full details can be found here; note that you will have to be logged into Ravelry for the link to work) and stumbled across Sarah Sundemeyer's designs, which include two superchunky cowls, both with Rasta as the recommended yarn.

Sarah's Sorrento cowl has a gorgeous texture; through a clever use of wraps and cables it looks woven, and would make a lovely last minute gift; there's even a matching hat. The pattern for the cowl is also in the supplement that comes with Issue 42 of Knit Now, which is in the shops now.

Sorrento Cowl, image copyright Sarah Sundermeyer

I decided to go with her Alhambra cowl as it knits a little bigger without any adjustment - when cycling in freezing fog being able to snuggle deep into the cowl while sat at traffic lights is a bonus! The cowl features a simple lattice pattern which I thought would work well with the level of variegation in the yarn.

Alhambra cowl, image copyright Sarah Sundermeyer

I sometimes struggle with knitting with superchunky yarn as it gets very heavy very quickly, and I find knitting with the thick needles required a bit cumbersome, but, that aside, this pattern was very easy to knit. Handily the tension for this project is the same as for the last project I knitted in this yarn, so I skipped the tension square step, which I did have a minor panic about when I was about halfway through the cowl and it looked a bit on the small side, but it was fine after blocking. The instructions are written very clearly, and I managed to knit the cowl in a couple of evenings (and definitely could have managed it in one if I hadn't had children to contend with). It did take me a few days to get round to washing and blocking it - this is not the time of year for things to dry quickly! And then it took me even longer to get round to photographing it as daylight is lacking at this time of year. But here it is, the finished cowl.

The first photo I took, which I managed to take zoomed in way too far, but it's still my favourite, c'est la vie...

If you don't want to snuggle into your cowl, I also like it folded back on itself

If I made it again for me I'd add a few more stitches (they can be added in multiples of four), but adding too many more stitches might push you over into a second skein, which is fine if you have some scraps leftover from another project, but annoying if you don't. It should be fine on my friend though; I hope it keeps her warm on her bike this winter.

Showing off the stitch pattern and the pretty variegation