Knitting a Red Moon Cowl

The Red Moon Cowl has been on my radar for a while, it uses stranded colour-work and is knit in the round. Back when I was at Yarndale in September, I purchased two skeins of yarn from Third Vault Yarns with this cowl in mind. I'd chosen 'Mount Doom' for the main colour and 'Rey' for the contrasting colour. Pretty much as soon as I had completed my Briony Pullover I got started on this. I'd really enjoyed knitting my Briony Pullover and as this pattern was also by Born & Raised Knits, the cowl seemed like a good project to work on next.

I didn't knit a gauge swatch but I knew I'd probably need to size up my needles, so opted to use 4mm needles rather than the recommended 3.5mm. The cowl consists of ribbing at the start and end, with 50 rows of colour-work in the middle, as you can probably guess from that, it's a pretty quick project to get done and not too complicated, it uses the same right lifted and left lifted increases, as had appeared in the Briony Pullover pattern, so I'd already got used to those and had no trouble with them.

It took me a bit over a month to complete the cowl, but if I'd worked on it consistently I probably could've got it done in a few days. I really love how it turned out and am very happy with the colours I chose, particularly the red, orange and brown tones of 'Mount Doom'. I have a fair amount of the yarn spare, as I had expected, so hopefully I'll find another project they'll work well for. I've already thought about purchasing more of 'Mount Doom' as it'd be perfect for the main colour on something larger.

The cowl fits very well, I was a bit concerned I wouldn't be able to get it over my head, but that's not an issue as all. I think the only thing I would change if I were to knit this again is that I'd be more careful to keep my stitches looking neat, as there's a few loose stitches in some areas, but when the cowl is worn they're really not noticeable, so it won't stop me from getting a lot of use out of it. I also would size down my needles to the recommended size whilst knitting the ribbing, I think the 4mm needles worked well for the main colour-work area, but the ribbing just looks a little bit gappy. Overall I'm really happy with this cowl, and whilst the weather is getting a bit too warm for it at the moment, I'm absolutely certain it'll get a lot of usage when it cools down. I would definitely recommend this pattern and I've already been considering knitting a Red Moon Sweater!