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A Simple Cowl for When You Need to Think

January 22, 2024 by Sarah White

The beginning of a new year (or the end of the first month, since we’re almost there already!) is a great time to reflect on the past year and to think about things you might want for yourself in the year ahead. It’s great to have an easy knitting project on the needles for these times of deep thinking, and that’s just want the Brood Cowl was designed for.

>> While you are here, check out our post on 13 Valentine Mug Rugs to Sew For Gifts <<

Rebecca McKenzie designed this top down, circular knit cowl for those times when things are weighing on you and you just need a bit of comfort knitting and a place to rest.

It uses DK weight yarn and has a little bit of shaping to give it a sloped look. It uses three colors of yarn with regular striping so you can carry the unused yarn up the inside of the cowl as you go rather than cutting and weaving in ends.

By now you probably expect me to say that you can use more colors if you want, and you could also make this with worsted weight or another weight of yarn if you like, bearing in mind it will come out a different size (or you can easily adjust the size). You could also try making it holding two strands of yarn together if you have lots of sock yarn or lace weight to work through.

Speaking of sizes, there are two options available in the pattern. The first is 20 inches around and 26 inches long (that’s 50 centimeters around and 66 long for our metric system friends), while the larger is 24 inches/61 cm around and 30 inches/76 cm long.

The stitch pattern is simple knits and purls so it would be pretty easy to alter the size if you want.

Learn more about the pattern and grab your copy on Ravelry.

[Photo: Rebecca McKenzie]

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Have you read?

Embellish Your Knit Dishcloth with Flowers

One great thing to knit when the weather is warm (or honestly any other time) is dishcloths and washcloths. They are fun and easy projects and a great way to play with new skills. Pretty washcloths make cleaning a tiny bit more fun, and they’re great to have on hand as a quick addition to a store-bought gift. 

The Daisy Delight Dishcloth from Yarnspirations is a fun one for using leftover bits of green in your cotton yarn stash. What looks like the bottom in the picture is actually the left side as you knit it, and each little color section is worked with its own ball of yarn, intarsia style. 

That’s a little fiddly for a washcloth, but the effect is cute, and it’s a simple way to learn the basics of intarsia knitting (as well as reading a chart) if you don’t already have those skills. 

One the knitting is done, you add the flowers with a bit of lazy daisy embroidery, which is really easy to do even if you’re not that into embroidery. You could also potentially add flowers in duplicate stitch if you’d rather. 

This may be the most work you’ve put into a dishcloth, but isn’t it adorable? It would be fun to use as a hand towel through the spring and summer, and if you already have some leftover green yarn from other projects it should be pretty easy to do. 

You could also take this same concept and make it different colors. All dark green stems with stars on top might be reminiscent of Christmas trees, or brown with daisy stitch on top in different colors could be trees in the fall. 

However you stitch it, this looks like a fun little project for knitters who are comfortable with intarsia and reading charts or who are ready to try those skills. 

You can grab the free pattern from Yarnspirations. 

[Photo: Yarnspirations]

Book Review – Dishcloths for Special Days [Knitting]

Book Review – Holiday Knit Dishcloths

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