Introducing the Brightside Cowl
I just published a new pattern – the Brightside Cowl! Here’s the story behind this pattern…it was actually knit up and written over 6 years ago. I had all of these leftover scraps of Berroco Vintage Chunky after knitting up my Simply Stripes Baby Blanket and I just loved the colors. My original concept was to create a project that would be a good skill-builder for newer knitters. At the time I was working at a yarn shop and was often being asked about good ‘next step’ projects for new knitters after they had learned the basics. So I wrote this pattern with the hope of creating video tutorials for each of the techniques used so that a beginner would feel comfortable taking it on. But, 6 years just kind of went by (as they often can do) without following through on this idea. Until now that is! Better late than never, right?
Brightside is worked back-and-forth just like a scarf – you attach each end together (seamlessly!) at the end to make it a cowl! Here are the techniques used in this pattern that all have video tutorials to go along with them:
- Long-tail cast-on
- Joining a new color
- Working 2-color 2-row stripes (carrying the yarn up the side)
- Picking up cast-on edge stitches
- Working a Three Needle Bind-off
Ready to make your own Brightside?
As I mentioned, I used Berroco Vintage Chunky for this project. You need 1 skein for your main color (I used Oats, a light brown color) and then about 25 yds each of 5 contrasting colors. Here are the colors I used:
- Sunny (yellow)
- Dewberry (purple)
- Tang (orange – this specific color is discontinued but you can use Pumpkin or Orange instead)
- Chocolate (brown)
- Neptune (teal)
Another great option would be Ewe Ewe Yarns Baa Baa Bulky. If you want a similar color palette to my sample, you could pick the following shades:
- Main Color: Wheat
- Contrasting colors: Saffron, Berry, Orange Peel, Pistachio and Teal.
It’s a great project to use up stash yarn too, so you can mix in other yarns as well. The pattern calls for bulky-weight, but if you’re interested in using other weight yarn, here are some cast-on number suggestions for other yarns:
- Fingering-weight (approx. 6 sts = 1″): cast-on 39
- Sport-weight (approx. 5.5 sts = 1″): cast-on 35
- DK-weight (approx. 5 sts = 1″): cast-on 32
- Worsted-weight (approx. 4.5 sts = 1″): cast-on 29
If you do use a different yarn-weight, just keep in mind that the yarn yardages listed in the pattern will not be accurate for you (you will need more yarn than listed). But the good thing with this project is that you can adapt it to however much yardage you may have in your stash by adding more colors, working more stripes of one particular color, etc.
Ready to make your own Brightside Cowl? Click here!
