Eleri Cowl

I can’t tell you how much I enjoyed this pattern.

The Pattern:

The Eleri Cowl is the first project I’ve made out of the back issues of “The Knitter” magazine. This pattern, along with a matching hat/tam is in issue #143. I started this project on the evening of November 20 and finished it on the evening of November 23. Granted, it isn’t a huge project but I think the speed at which I finished is a good indication of how much I loved this project. I love the yarn, the colors, the pattern – everything about it.

Mary Henderson is the designer and she has a ton of projects in The Knitter magazines. In fact, she has a vest on the cover of the current issue. I also have yarn to make one of her sweaters, Gilda, that is in issue #130. Wait a minute . . she has the cover project on the most recent and the one before it, as well as several others. What a great designer!

I was telling Vince how much I love her work and I said “I really want to go spend a month with her!” He said “Ask. She may say yes. I want to go too!” Nope . . not asking but oh, to be a fly on her wall and watch her work!

The Yarn

The yarn is Cambrian Wool 4 ply made by Cambrian Mountains Wool. You can read about the Cambrian wool here. I find it so interesting to read about the different types of wool, the different spinning techniques, etc. Each type wool is truly unique and I’ve never read much about the different wools until recently.

I loved the yarn. At first, I thought it felt a little scratchy but it isn’t at all. It’s a perfect wool for colorwork. Even after working with it for a while, I realized it wasn’t scratchy but now that it’s been soaked and blocked, it’s heavenly soft.

The colors I used were exactly the same colors used by the designer but I used a shade darker gray. I don’t usually use the exact same colors used by the designer but these were so perfect, I didn’t even try to find a better for me color combination.

Corrugated Ribbing

So many of the patterns in The Knitter have corrugated ribbing and I wanted to try it. When doing colorwork, it matters which yarn is held in which hand, i.e., which yarn is in front of the other. For me, the yarn held in my right hand is the yarn in the back, and that makes it more of the background yarn. The yarn held in my left hand is in front and that makes it more the dominant color. To do the corrugated ribbing, I wanted the gray to be the dominant yarn so that meant it had to be held in my left hand, which is pretty uncooperative! Worse, that was a purl stitch to be done by the left hand. Knit stitches are way easier for me to make and way, way easier to make using the right hand vs. the left hand. I must have been making some crazy faces because Vince said “What’s wrong?” and explained that I looked like I was in pain. I told him . . my head knows what to do but my left hand and my head are not communicating. With 14 rows of corrugated ribbing on the first section, my left hand finally got it and the ribbing on about rows 5 – 15 when so much more quickly than the first four rows had gone.

I’ve been working very hard to get my tension correct for the floats. If the tension is too tight, the colorwork area pulls and stretches at a different rate from any non-colorwork areas. If the tension is too loose, the stitches look loose and sloppy on the front. I’m pretty proud of how the stitches on the back look.