Stripes

For today's post you are going to need to use your imagination a bit.

Unicorn Stripes (pattern purchased on Ravelry) is knit using 30 skeins of madelinetosh unicorn tails. We have the scarf version in the store. You start with one colour and knit until it runs out and then join in the next colour. You get approximately 16 rows with each skein.

You can join the ends to make a beautiful cowl.

Here is where your imagination needs to kick in. Deirdre came in the other day wearing a cool cowl. She took 10 skeins (not 30) and used this pattern. Before she joined it into a cowl she flipped one end to create a twist.

I tried to recreate the cowl with my scarf and I'm close. I asked her why she added the twist and her answer made a lot of sense. If you don't add the twist you get a cowl that sits up high on your chin. Sort of like this.

Add the twist and it lies flat - almost like a necklace.

I really liked the look of it so I cast on last night. I didn't use unicorn tails but pulled out my bag of leftover tosh merino light. You can use any fingering weight yarn. You can use any number of colours. For a uniform look you can do 16 rows of each colour. I'm not very uniform so my cowl will be random. You need approximately 160 rows for the cowl. The great thing is that you are knitting a scarf and sewing it so you can try it on as you go.

The scarf is actually a tube - you are knitting on a circular needle. It's a double sided cowl so no worrying if you have the right or wrong side showing . All your ends are on the inside. And there is no purling. All you need to know is knit, knit into the front and back of a stitch to increase, knit 2 together and ssk. The pattern calls for a provisional cast on but I didn't do that. When I graft the ends together I will have a small seam on the inside but I'm okay with that. Can you say obsessed? I'm only 30 rows in and I'm thinking about the next one. A Party of Five kit from SweetGeorgia would look awesome!

I'm leaning towards English Bay but that can change tomorrow.