I’m so excited to tell you about my latest pattern, Winslow Park Cowl! The idea for this piece came early in the summer, when I was brainstorming ideas for a fall/winter accessory project. Jeff and I went to our local town park – Winslow Park & Campground – one summer evening, just as a big storm was heading out to sea. One of the photos he took that evening was this one:
I just fell in love with it. The colors, textures, depth – it was just all so striking and inspiring. And that’s when I thought – let me design a cowl inspired by this photo! And so, the Winslow Park Cowl was born. I chose 5 colors of Manos del Uruguay’s Silk Blend yarn – a gorgeous merino yarn that is so soft and has a great color palette to pick from. I chose colors that matched the shades of the rocks, seaweed, water, clouds and sky:
The colors above (from bottom to top) are Marzipan (tan), Topaz (orange), Kohl (slate blue/gray), Silver (light gray) and Wedgwood (blue). These colors definitely remind me of the Maine coastline!
I also made another version with Berroco Ultra Wool DK – I really like the interpretation of the colors in this palette too!
If you’re interested in a yarn kit using either of these yarns, check out the shop Ball & Skein & More – they put together kits here on their website!
Tip: if you decide to use the above Berroco Ultra Wool, scroll down to the bottom of this post for a tip on what to do with all the leftover yarn!
The Techniques
In addition to the colors, the other thing I wanted to focus on with this cowl was including a couple of ‘advanced beginner’ techniques. I wanted this project to be fun and easy, but also be something that would allow a more beginner knitter to learn a few new things.
The bottom of the cowl features the “knitted turned hem” technique which creates such a neat & tidy hemline – you’ll impress yourself once you do it! And the pattern includes a link to a photo as well as video tutorial for this.
The other main technique I use in this piece is the helical stripe technique. This is actually a pretty new-to-me technique that I learned recently and had so much fun with. It creates jog-less stripes that look totally continuous – you don’t even have that typical tension issue at the beginning of round like you normally get with in the round stripes. Pattern includes link to photo tutorials that walk you through this technique (plus links to other tutorials about it that I found helpful!):
Ready to make your own? Check out all of the pattern details and purchase the PDF here!
Tip for leftover yarn!
If you use a yarn that comes in 100g skeins, such as Berroco Ultra Wool DK, you’ll have a bunch of yarn leftover. You could of course just make another Winslow Park Cowl, but if you would like another project idea – you can make a Summer Soundtrack Cowl! You’ll enough yarn leftover in any of the colors so you can pair up two colors, or you can change up the pattern a bit and incorporate more than two colors!
I do recommend a couple of changes to the pattern though if you choose to use Berroco Ultra Wool DK because the gauge is just slightly different than the original yarn. My recommended changes when using this yarn are noted below:
- I used a US 6 as my main needle instead of a US 5.
- I cast-on 136 stitches (instead of 144).
- In both sections 1 and 2, I repeated rows 1-6: 7 times (instead of 8) – this means that you will have 9 bands of color B (in section 1) and color A (in section 2) instead of the 10 bands.
- I used a US 5 for the top ribbing instead of the US 4.
