I bought a lovely long, warm North Face winter coat at the end of last season for a steal of a deal, and I couldn’t wait to start wearing it this year. However, I found that the top of the zipper where it joins to form a collar was digging into the soft area under my jaw, whether I pulled the zip all the way up or not. And, I like to wear an infinity scarf in winter (Canadian winters can be cold, and I love to be outside in all seasons!) but it’s such a bulky coat that I thought adding a full infinity scarf might be too much bulk.
So, I set off through Ravely in search of a cowl pattern. I had thought maybe it was time to finally try one of Andrea Mowry’s Shift scarves, but then the fun name “Spiritual Guardians cowl” caught my attention. Spiritual Guardians, I thought to myself. Like D&D? Yes, it turns out the pattern creator was inspired by the famous cleric spell in the making of this cowl. And it had fun cable twists. I love a good cable pattern. And I had everything I needed, from yarn to needles to notions already in my stash. So that day I downloaded the pattern and cast on.
I had noted the pattern starts with a k2p2 rib, so I set merrily off knit-knitting and purl-purling through the first row after the cast on, only to realize the pattern starts on the second purl of the rib. Devious. I looked at about an hour of work, sighed, and frogged it. Noting that I had had quite a long tail left over in that first cast on, I shortened my tail by about half the excess and cast on again. And came up about 10 cm short of what I needed to complete the cast on.
At that point, I could no longer remember why I liked knitting and started thinking of ways to make a cowl out of rocks. However, I knew I needed the cowl, and I often have trouble getting knit projects started. Lucky for me, and for my cowl, the third time was in fact the charm and I managed to both cast on and start the project as the pattern specified.
As I mentioned, I really love a cable in a knit pattern. I find them quite magical when they work, and one of my favourite knit projects ever is this Both Sides Now scarf that I knit for Lucas a couple of years ago. Every time he wears it (which is every day from about October through May) I eyeball it covetously.
Isn’t that wool delicious? It’s so soft and squishy. Sadly, it came from the now closed Belfast Mini-Mills shop on PEI, and I have been so sad to not be able to get any more. But I did have a leftover skein of Malabrigo Rios in Anniversario from the ill-fated Sweater That Broke My Heart, so I thought I would give it a chance to redeem itself. I knew the variegated pattern was less than ideas to show off the cables, but I also knew it would be lovely peeking out of the deep black of my coat collar, and I figured the cables were more about the structure than for show anyway.
This is the first cable pattern I’ve done that had both a text representation of the pattern and a diagram. I really thought I’d prefer to follow the text version, especially since when I started to teach myself how to double knit, I wrote out all the patterns long hand this way. But, it turns out I’m a diagram girl. This pattern is super friendly and easy to orient yourself in, as long as you put a stitch marker to indicate every pattern repeat. I got lost often (with ADHD, my mind constantly wanders no matter how hard I try to focus) and had to look up which diagram represents which stitch combination every single time, but the pattern is super clear and easy to follow, and I can read my knitting well enough to know when I’ve gotten off track and how to get back.
This pattern offers two widths, and I chose to make the more generous snuggly version. I had intended to make the shorter length version, which calls for one repeat of the vertical pattern, but as I was most of the way through the first repeat it looked like it was coming out to about the length I’d want to tuck into the collar of my coat, so I stopped after once through the cable pattern plus ribbing to start and end it.
The final challenge was binding off. I hate casting off – it’s very anxiety-provoking to be SO CLOSE to the end of a project and potentially have something go sideways. To add to the stress, the pattern called for a stretchy bind off like Jeny’s Surprisingly Stretchy Bind Off, which I’d never tried before. So that led to about an hour early on a Saturday morning of me, sitting with my coffee and muttering under my breath for all 160 stitches, “Wrap clockwise, knit, off, off; wrap clockwise, knit, off, off; wrap counterclockwise, purl, off, off; wrap counterclockwise, purl, off, off; wrap clockwise, knit, off, off; wrap clockwise, knit, off, off; wrap counterclockwise, purl, off, off; wrap counterclockwise, purl, off, off… ” Do you find that repeating the pattern verbally helps you follow it? I really had to concentrate on every single stitch through this bind off, but it is, indeed, super stretchy and a lovely way to finish this cowl.
And if you, too, are new to Jeny’s Surprisingly Stretchy (but really not all that difficult) Bind Off, I found this tidbit useful and my future self will be happy that I noted it here: It’s easier to slip the stitches off after the purl if you move the working yarn to the back. When you bring it back around to purl again, the yarn over is basically a continuation of the motion to bring the yarn back to the front.
In the end, it took about 2 weeks of spare time knitting, and I absolutely adore how it came out!
It’s exactly the perfect size and shape to wear as a neck warmer with my bulky coat. I love the colour, and how the cables give it extra body and stretch. I can see the cables through the variegated yarn, but it also does a nice job of hiding all those 2/1 RCs that I kept accidentally skipping in my enthusiasm to be done the section of the row. Oh well. It’s still a perfectly good cowl, and the only mistakes in a pattern that really bother me are the ones that cause it to unravel, LOL. Thanks to @heather.hops for the lovely pattern!