One Cowl To Rule Them All
A DaniDo Crafty Design Especially for Desert Garden Farm This pattern is meant to work with a variety of yarn weights, fiber contents and textures. It is a very simple lace pattern that can easily be worked up in an afternoon with bulky yarn and thick needles or over a few days at a finer gauge. Designed with unique hand spun yarns specifically in mind but this would be an excellent one skein project for commercial yarns as well.
Gauge is relatively unimportant; however you'll want to make sure to use the numbers that will yield something you can get over your head. The cowl shown is $21^{\prime\prime}$ around un-stretched and roughly 8 inches tall. Suggestions for picking a needle size (when in doubt go up a needle size, the k4tog and k4togtbl sts are tricky at a tight gauge, pattern is meant to be loose and drape nicely): Lace to fingering weight yarn: Us5 or 6 needles DK & Sport weights: US7 or 8 needles Worsted weight: US 9, 10, 10.5 o 11 Heavy Worsted or above: US13 or 15
One Cowl To Rule Them All
Here's how to do the math: Cast on 39 sts (3 repeats of the 13 st lace pattern) in the needles that suit your yarn. Work the lace repeat for several inches. Bind off loosely. Lay the swatch flat and count your stitches per inch. If you want a cowl that is $21^{\prime\prime}$ around multiply your stitch gauge by 21. If you number is divisible by 13 then you can use that exact number, if your number is not divisible by 13 than pick the number closest to you math that is divisible by 13. Example: 6 (sts to the inch) times 21 (inches) $=$ 126. 126 is not divisible by 13 but 130 is, I will cast on 130 sts. Cowl shown was knit with a roughly DK weight single on Us8 needles using 130 sts. Cast on your number of stitches, being careful not to twist and join in the round. Place a marker at beginning of round. Work lace pattern as follows: Round 1: knit Round 2: knit Round 3: \*k4tog, (yo, k1) 5 times, yo, k4togtlb\* repeat around Repeat these 3 rounds for desired length or until you are nearly out of yarn. Knit 2 rounds even and bind off loosely. (You may wish to use a sewn bind off or a crocheted bind off to make sure the bind off edge isn't too tight to get over your head.) Block lightly so points are visible.
