Houll Cowl

Hello everyone, like with my Roosty Hat I posted about recently sometimes when I feel a bit lost in my designing I go back to previous patterns and think about how I could use the motifs in another design.

it takes some of the battles out of the project: I already like the colours and know they work, similarly with the motif. I can just go through the process but know I will most likely be happy with the finished object. One of these patterns I have often thought back to is my Houll Hat pattern I released in 2018

I really love the way the colours shine on the Shetland Black background and although successful I have always wanted to see the allover pattern on a bigger scale than a hat so I thought about putting it on a cowl!

And as predicted I like it! The band of bright blue takes on a different effect in a cowl and although the pattern is quite busy I find it pleasing and not stripey (something a try to avoid as explained in my article for Kate!) The background colour is Supreme Jumper Weight 2005 Shetland Black, the darkest of natural brown and the contrast colours are Jumper Weight FC38, 32 and 90 which give you the 3 blending colours with the bright 71 in the middle row.

Scarves and cowls are easy which means they are also dull to knit so I decided to make it not very wide and not too long – it’s actually just three repeats of the chart and only 6 repeats long. I started this project last year, got so far and set it down then in the last few weeks, I made a big effort to knit on it every day which always means I see good progress and it encourages me to get it finished! Although I love designing and finishing my patterns the actual knitting is probably my least favourite part only because I have to be patient which is not one of my strengths, maybe I shouldn’t say that but it’s the truth..

Like for my Houll Hat pattern I roped in my Dad again to help me take pictures and used the Fish Market as our backdrop (this time Lerwick, last time it was Scalloway) I like how the rust and blue colours are all around in the Fishing accoutrements. Shetland’s environment is often an inspiration but also sometimes these types of brash, graphic colours are also my vibe.

As I was knitting this I kept wondering how the motif would look in a 2 colour version, because I didn’t feel like waiting another year for me to knit one I decided on Thursday to machine knit another version, so within a couple of hours I had the knitting done and I just had to seam up the side and graft it together. I decided to use Supreme Jumper Weight in 2004 Moorit and 2006 Gaulmogit.

I think it’s so interesting how the motif looks completely different in just two colours – the ‘stars’ in between the main motifs which in the multi-colour version don’t really stand out become much more prominent in the 2 colour version and almost feel like the main motif! If you want to knit a 2-colour version, you need approximately 65g of Yarn A and 55g of Yarn B.

So that’s my Houll Cowl! I hope you like it, the pattern is available on Ravelry, Payhip and Lovecrafts. It’s a very easy knit and except for provisionally casting on and grafting the only thing you have to do is knit!

Speak Soon x