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Ava Cowl Knitting Pattern Offers Colorful Warmth

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I don’t know why I hadn’t thought of this before, but colorwork knitting is sort of like a very slow coloring book page. You add your own colors bit by bit and make the basic design something your own.

This thought struck me when I was looking at the Ava Cowl by Shinysuperhero. There are so many great samples of the design on Ravelry, worked in all sorts of different colors, that it looks like different people colored in the same coloring page or painted the same design with different materials.

Which I guess is always the case when different people knit the same thing, it just struck me with this bold floral design.

The cowl pattern comes in five sizes from kids to adult (11 to 30 inches around) and is available in English and Danish. You can get the pattern on Ravelry for about $4.95.

[Photo: Shinysuperhero.]Check out these books dedicated to Knitted Cowl Patterns still looking for more cowl patterns? Check these out on Etsy.

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Make Your Knitting Machine Scarves Better

I feel like it’s been a while since I’ve shared any patterns for our circular knitting machine users. I know these devices aren’t for everyone but even though I much prefer knitting by hand, it is kind of fun to crank things out on these machines.

One of the most common early projects for a circular knitting machine is a scarf. Which makes sense, because it’s just one long tube and you can make it as long as you like.

One problem that comes from knitting scarves on the circular knitting machine, though, is that it can be hard to know how to finish the ends of the tube so that it looks like a finished scarf and not a tube of knitting.

If you’re not a knitter or crocheter, the most basic way to finish a circular knitting machine scarf is just by cinching up the ends and maybe adding a pompom to each end to cover up any hole that might still be visible at the end.

But if you have a little knitting or crochet skill or are willing to learn, there are a lot of different options for closing up the ends of a scarf. And this would also be true if you hand knit a tube scarf!

I recently wrote a post over at Our Daily Craft that includes five different ways to close up the ends of a tube scarf:

  • the simple cinching method mentioned above
  • sewing the stitches together
  • three needle bind off
  • grafting
  • crochet bind off

Grafting is my favorite because I feel like it gives the cleanest, closest to a seamless look. If you’re a knitter you may already know how to do it but even if you don’t it’s not that hard to learn.

Do you knit tube scarves by hand or machine? I’d love to know how you like to finish them!