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Wednesday 13 January 2016

Aran cowl ...

I've designed this wonderful Aran cowl for my Costa Brava Knitting workshops in February. I do hope my guests enjoy making it up and adapting the pattern to create their own unique holiday knits. What do you think?



It's a relatively straightforward project as both the cables and the central tree/ rope panel repeat over 8 rows, so they stay in step with one another as the project progresses, making it easy to keep track of where you are.

I used just under 2, 100g hanks of the wool (just under 400 m/ 440 yards), and it knit up on 4mm/ UK size 8/ US size 6 needles in the pattern at 47 stitches x 30 rows for a 10cm x 10 cm tension square. My scarf, before I folded it up and stitched it to make a cowl, measured 16 cm/6.5"  wide x 80 cm/ 31.5" long.

Just read on for the pattern:


Cast on 76 stitches using 4 mm needles.


The scarf consists of two identical double cable twist panels, which are knit over 23 stitches sandwiching a central tree/rope panel which is knit over 30 stitches. I've set out graphs for each of these panels below, and all you need to do is follow the pattern across from graph to graph.

i.e. the knitting plan looks like this:

[23 stitch cable] [30 stitch central section] [23 stitch cable]

Graph for the 23 stitch double cable twist panel:


Key: -

k = knit
p = purl
c = cable front i.e. place first 3 stitches on cable needle, and hold at the front of the work. Knit second three stitches from left hand needle. Then knit first three stitches from the cable needle.

I've been asked to summarize this in a more conventional graph, so here it is:




Graph for the central tree/ rope panel, knit over 30 stitches and repeated over 8 rows:


Key: -

k = knit
p = purl
b = cable 3 back i.e. cable back i.e. place first 3 stitches on cable needle, and hold at the back of the work. Knit second three stitches from left hand needle. Then knit first three stitches from the cable needle.
f = cable 3 front i.e. cable front i.e. place first 3 stitches on cable needle, and hold at the front of the work. Knit second three stitches from left hand needle. Then knit first three stitches from the cable needle.

Or, if you'd prefer to see this as a more conventional knitting graph :


Keep going in pattern until your cowl measures 80 cm or however long you'd like it to be. Then cast off on a right side row in pattern. In my case I knit 240 rows, so that I cast off at the end of the 8 row pattern repeat sequence so that the two ends of the scarf would match up when I joined them with a seam to make the cowl. 



Block your work and sew the ends together with a neat whip stitch seam, matching the patterns as you go. 



All the best for now,

Bonny x

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