Tag Archives: Antonia Shankland

Classic Honey Cowl

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Meet Honey Cowl. It’s Antonia Shankland’s incredibly popular cowl. A freebie on Ravelry.  OK, you probably already met Honey Cowl if you’ve been hanging around in knitting circles in the last decade or so. It’s another goodie though oldie. In fact, it’s such a goodie I’m featuring it all by itself in this post.

I knit mine in Madelinetosh Tosh Sport in the Dried Rose colorway. I’ve had two skeins in my stash since November 30, 2013. Hmmm. I was saving them for something special. More and more I find I have difficulty deciding what to knit with sportweight yarn. Honey Cowl is designed for DK weight yarn. It dawned on me that the cowl would look great in any weight, so long as you’re not fussy about gauge or the size of the eventual loop. That’s true if you reckon you’ve enough yarn to complete the cowl.

Glass Head thinks this two-round slip stitch pattern ends up as a stunning and cozy cowl. So do I.

This is sportweight yarn, but it feels more like a DK. I knit the largest size (220 stitches) on a US size 7 needle. I ended up with 28 grams of yarn left from the 540 yards that I started with.

I used the Chinese Waitress cast-on, so called because Cap Sease learned it from a Chinese waitress she met in a restaurant. It creates a well-behaved, almost crochet chain look at the start. And at the end the double chain cast-off matches the Chinese Waitress cast-on very nicely.

The edges curl on purpose since the piece starts and ends with a few rows of stockinette.The slightly more decorative edges looks quite nice. I gave the cowl a light blocking to tame the roll and make it a tad more uniform. This one’s for me!

I knit my first Honey Cowl way back in September of 2011. I used Madelinetosh Tosh Merino DK in the Grasshopper colorway. My current plan is to knit Honey Cowl more often than once a decade.

More than 27,000 Ravelers have Honey Cowl project pages. And it’s in nearly 14,000 queues. It’s definitely a knitworthy pattern.

White knits

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So far I’ve recently written about my new orange, blue, brown, and red knits. I know. Not really much of a way to organize my presentation. This is the last planned post that plays with just one color. And this time it’s white and sort-of-white.

Didn’t this turn out sweet? It’s Knitwise Design’s Hunting Season Hat. In my version, I’ll have to dub it Snow Season Hat. This is my third time knitting this hat and I’ve yet to knit it in blaze orange. This version is knit in Blue Sky Extra. There’s a bit of story to that. I bought my Extra in New Orleans on a business trip at a wonderful shop in the French Quarter. I knit most of it up in my Minnie. It’s a wonderful Aran weight yarn, in 55% merino 45% alpaca. And the extra must refer to extra soft because it definitely is.

I had extra Extra, so I lengthened my Annie Baker Designs Minnie to an extravagant 69 inches. It’s 11 inches at its widest point.

It was such a pretty thing. “Was” is the operative word. I simply couldn’t figure out how to wear it. I watched some videos on how to wear shawls and scarves. I got advice from friends. I finally decided to wear it once and someone told me it made “a bit of a statement.” Indeed. I frogged it. The yarn had been garter stitched for more than three years when I unravelled it and rolled it into a nice big ball. It was very kinked up but, honestly, I just didn’t feel like going through the effort to wash it and re-skein it. I just knit my hat, kinks and all.

I couldn’t be more pleased with it. Here’s a look at its crown decreases.

Hunting Season Hat barely made a dent in my frogged Extra. So I decided to knit Antonia Shankland’s Hello Cowl. It’s a Ravely freebie.

It knitted up very kinky looking and needed a complete soak to relax into the pattern. The soaking caused the crispness of the patterning to disappear. But I still like it. A lot actually. I cast on 130 stitches rather than 110 to widen the circumference. We’ve had some very chilly pontoon rides on the lake this week. I wore the cowl, some of the time, as Glass Head is modeling it. Sort of a snood.

I know I will get much more use out of this hat and cowl than Minnie. Minnie is a very sweet pattern, though. Don’t shy away from it just because I couldn’t get it to look quite right on me.

Maybe you remember that I totally overbought on my Paintbox Yarns Simply Aran when I knit two Canada Geese for my grandkids?  The pattern said one skein of white. I was making two geese. I bought two 100 gram skeins.  Think about a Canada Goose. Their only white markings are a neckband and their chest. So I had gobs of acrylic Aran weight yarn left to work with. Hats. Knitting hats in warm weather is a thing with me.

This one is Lea Petäjä’s Neulepipo Novita 7 Veljestä. When I put the title into the Google translator it translates as “Knit Hat from Novita 7 Brother.” Novita 7 Veljestä is a yarn from Novitaknits, a Helsinki company. I’m a fan of no-nonsense pattern names so “Knit Hat” suits me.

It’s an excellent combination of meandering cables and nice beefy bobbles. I’ve always enjoyed working a rolled brim when the rolling is tamed by ribbing. And the crown decreases work well too.

My white Paintbox Aran yarn Canada Geese purchase still wasn’t exhausted. This next hat from the goose stash is another Ravelry freebie: Foryla by ArtbyTekora.

Foryla means “whirl” in Cornish. These alternating medallion cables do have a whirl quality to them. They were a boatload of fun to knit. The crown decreases got rather untidy though. But unless someone is filming a drone video above you that doesn’t matter too much. This time, I think that the body of the hat makes up for it. And it’s entirely possible I goofed on following the crown decrease instructions.

For a closing laugh since I know how many of you are not dishcloth knitters, here’s Evelyn A. Clark’s Bathtime Blossoms, a Fiber Trends pattern. I knit mine in sportweight Appalachian Baby Design US organic cotton. Call it a spa cloth if that better suits. This yarn was left over from a baby hat kit I knit up years ago. Such a pretty thing! Using up oddments  is yet another good excuse for dishcloth knitting. If you need any excuses, Dot, now that you’ve begun your journey into dishcloth knitting.