cowls a plenty

hello, if anyone still reads here.. sorry again for a long silence, the year has flown by again. I haven’t had much to say for a long time, but in the interests of hope that anyone is still interested in my designs I thought I’d do a post about my pattern in the 2026 Shetland Wool Week Annual, and yes… its another cowl!

On first glance, this pattern – named the Quenta Cowl, is quite similar to my Radiant Star cowl, featuring an allover Norwegian star motif but what is different about this cowl is I made it different on the inside so you get two in one:

When I was trying to think of how to make this not the same as my other cowls I thought about background and pattern colours/colour dominance and wondered how it would look if these were reversed on each side and featured a different motif, so that’s what I did!

On one side you have one solid background colour with the motif on a selection of pattern colours then the other side uses the colours striped as the background and the solid colour as your pattern colour!

Its very easy to knit, you just cast on provisionally, knit one side round and round, knit a few plain rows, knit the other side (make sure to switch how you hold the yarn to ensure your background/pattern colours switch dominance).. then graft together!

As i always do too now i like to have two colourways, i wanted to use slightely ‘insipid’ colours: thats the grey with purple, lime and orange.. not shades i ususally use but theres something about the sicklyness of them i like together.. then i wanted a more ‘traditional colourway featuring the classic shetland colours of blue, red, yellow and brown.

Of course i used 2ply Jumper Weight, my all time favourite and most reliable workhouse yarn for Fair Isle, you can find the shade information for the cowl, along with the other patterns, here: https://www.shetlandwoolweek.com/2026-annual-yarn-requirements/

This also means that last years pattern, the Osla Cowl is now available as a single pattern on my Ravelry:

2026 has been a shit show for me in my personal life, the past few years (basically since 2020) have not been great, but this year has taken the prize so although I am disappointed in my knitting/pattern output I have to feel proud of myself on some level I have managed to do anything creative. At least the Wool Week Annual forces me to design and knit something and they always photograph it so lovely so that’s something!!

I don’t even know if blogs are still a thing and if anyone cares but I have got a thing about social media now and hate sharing things so I do like to give a bit of background to my designs here, so I thank you for reading and hope you will still be here next time I feel like posting.

speak soon xxx