Seven New Free Cowl Patterns to Warm Up Your Needles

I’m kind of obsessed with checking out the new projects on Ravelry. It’s how I find a lot of the patterns I shared with you, and this afternoon while I was checking it out there were no fewer than seven new cowl knitting patterns that had been posted in the past few days.

I have a feeling that means fall is coming and that we’re all looking forward to having the need to warm our necks!

Because there are so many, I’ll be brief, but hopefully give you enough intel so you’ll know which ones you want to check out.

Two of them — the Manly Mossy Cowl from Wool & Flax and the Ninja Turtle Infinity Scarf from a knitter of Craftster who goes by the nickname Bananaleg — use what I would call seed stitch worked flat and in the round, respectively. (Seed stitch is called moss stitch in other parts of the world; confusing, right?) I’ve been craving a seed stitch (or moss stitch) cowl so either of these would be great for me right now. Oh, wait, here’s another seed stitch one, from This Girl Loves to Craft, which she worked from the short side and called the Buenos Aires Cowl.

Danish designer Nanna Gudmand-Høyer has a lovely colorwork pattern called Galianthus, which I will admit I could not get to translate on my computer but I didn’t try very hard.

The Almost Fur Cowl from ABC Knitting Patterns is a top-down, circular knit, shaped cowl (bordering on poncho, but shorter) that combines a furry novelty yarn with a self-striping yarn for a bold but easy project.

The knitter with the awesomely named blog One Geek to Craft Them All finished a project for the Ravellenic Games: a self-designed cabled cowl made from homespun called Girl on Fire. It’s absolutely beautiful (it’s the one pictured) and would be great knit from a heavy worsted non-homespun if you don’t happen to be a spinner.

Finally there’s Haldjas, a lovely lacy cowl from Estonian knitwear designers Kärt Urman. This one is a PDF (scroll down to the bottom of that page and click the link) and it’s in English, though of course you could work it out from the chart, too. Haldjas, she tells us, means fairy in Estonian, and this lacy mohair wrapper certainly is ethereal!

[Photo by One Geek to Craft Them All.]

A few years ago I wrote a post that was full of patterns for knit mushrooms, but I don’t think I ever did a post that was knitting patterns with mushrooms on them, so today’s the day.

I love the Fungi Beanie from Jacki Bean, which calls for worsted weight yarn and uses duplicate stitch to add the mushrooms and other details. I think the colors she used for the design are tonal/multicolor so it doesn’t use as many colors as it looks like, but you can use whatever red, green, brown and white yarn you have in your stash for those details.

How about some mushroom socks? The Magic Toadstool sock form Stone Knits includes a ring of mushrooms around the leg, contrasting heel and toe and a little more colorwork at the toe for extra cuteness. As shown it uses four colors and comes in three sizes.

Or there’s the Fairy Ring Socks from Katie Green, which have mushrooms of two sizes on the legs, plus a bit of wavy grass. They have a contrasting cuff, heel and toe and some colorwork flecks in the body of the sock as well. This one is available in eight sizes to fit everyone from a baby to an XL adult.

This trippy cowl from Hunt Hand Knits looks like a lot of fun to knit. The Fungus Among Us Cowl is shown using four colors of DK weight yarn, though you can do it with as few as two if you’d rather.

Stitch some mushroom mittens with this cute pattern from Holly C Watson. This design uses three colors, and it’s shown with a self-striping yarn on the mushroom caps, which makes the colors change without you having to do any work. The pattern is charted but it’s a pretty easy repeat. The mittens are one size.

If you don’t feel like knitting mushrooms but still want to give your project a touch of the forest, the Toadstools Cardigan from Julie Taylor may be what you’re looking for. It’s stitched as a plain cardigan worked in DK weight yarn and sized for newborns up to 4 years old. The mushrooms are added with embroidery and the pattern includes the design, which you can trace onto water soluble stabilizer to stitch the mushrooms onto your sweater. Or anything else you want. You can find this pattern on Ravelry.

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