All About the Soar Cowl Pattern

The idea for this cowl has been sitting in a file on my computer since September 2022. I had created a rough version of the colourwork chart, an accompanying document where I'd described how I pictured the finished cowl, plus a very rough draft of the pattern directions. I'd pictured a simple cowl with ribbing at the top and bottom, sections of colourwork inspired by feathers and rows of bobbles to add texture. There were other designs on my mind that I wanted to complete before this cowl, so it took me until summer 2023 to finally pick this project back up.

The first step of this project was to knit a swatch using the rough colourwork chart I'd originally created. I then used this swatch to work out my gauge and decide on the stitch and row counts needed for the dimensions I wanted. Following this, I began working on the charts, these were based on my original rough version of the colourwork charts, but with adjustments to improve the design and accommodate the stitch and row counts I'd decided on. Using my original very rough draft I created a more refined version of the pattern directions, which meant I could begin knitting the cowl.

This style of cowl doesn't require a huge amount of yarn, so I thought it'd be the perfect opportunity to utilise some partially used skeins from my yarn stash. I chose two colourways from Beehive Yarns. For the main colour I used 'Rose Lichen' which is a light pink shade with speckles of green, orange and purple; I wanted the contrast colour to really stand out, so I chose 'Conker' which is a dark brown tonal colour. When knitting colourwork I really like combining more variegated and speckled yarns with a bolder tonal yarn, and I thought these two would work perfectly together.

When I initially began knitting this cowl I thought it'd be a pretty straightforward project and didn't think I'd need to make any major changes to the pattern. I began with knitting the ribbing, followed by the colourwork section and everything was going really well. I was happy with how the project was turning out, but then I reached the bobble section. This was my first design where I'd decided to include bobbles and when I'd initially knitted my swatch I hadn't studied them in a lot of detail as I was focused on the colourwork. I realised that because of how the bobbles end up being positioned they don't sit vertically centred on their row. This made the space between the bobbles and surrounding rows of contrast colour look uneven. I re-knitted this section a couple of times before I was happy with the spacing and definitely learnt a lot about bobbles. Once I'd got that section figured out I really enjoyed the rest of the project. The colourwork is quite easy to knit with no long floats that need to be trapped, the bobble row is then surrounded by plain rows of stockinette stitch which act as relaxing breaks.

I'm very happy with the finished cowl, I had a great time knitting it and it looks exactly as I'd originally pictured. I always enjoy working on stranded colourwork designs and I'm pleased with how I balanced that with some added texture in this pattern. Working on this cowl has definitely made me want to further explore playing with both texture and colour in future designs.

Click the link below to check out the full details of the pattern.