Fresh Tracks Tips Page

On this page you’ll find tips & tutorials to help you make your own Fresh Tracks cowl! You’ll find information about:

Yarn & Gauge:

Fresh Tracks features Loop Yarn’s Flora DK, a 100% superwash merino. It provides excellent stitch definition for this pattern while still feeling super soft against your neck.

You’ll notice on the Pattern Information page that gauge is listed in both the Garter Ridge Eyelet Stitch Pattern and Stockinette Stitch. Although the row gauges are different, the stitch gauge is the same for both. So for swatching purposes, you can simply work a Stockinette Stitch swatch in the round and focus on matching the stitch gauge. Row gauge is not critical for this pattern.

Stitches and Techniques Featured

Below are tutorials for each of the techniques used in the pattern:

Long tail cast-on
Long tail cast-on
Joining to Work in the Round
Joining to Work in the Round
k2tog & ssk decreases
Working a YO (and with a k2tog)

Short Version: The Hem Joining Process

For the short version of Fresh Tracks, after working the hem, you’ll reach the “Joining Hems” section which is broken out into 6 steps. The images below will help you to visualize each of the steps in this process:

Step 1:

You’re instructed to slip 7 stitches. Insert RN into each stitch as if to purl and then just slide it onto the RN without working it.
This is what it will look like once you’ve slipped those 7 stitches.
Then you’re instructed to re-join yarn – here you will see I have draped the yarn over the RN and then I will knit with it. Then follow the remaining instructions for the rest of that row.
The above shows what it will look like at the end of step 1, where I have 4 remaining stitches unworked.

Step 2:

In Step 2, you’ll need an extra DPN needle – this is just to hold stitches so it just needs to be a similar size to that used for your actual knitting.
Insert DPN purlwise into each of the remaining 4 stitches.

Step 3:

On the circ, slide the sts from the beg of the row towards the needle tip as shown above.
Then align the DPN with the 4 stitches on-top of this left needle, as shown above.

Step 4:

Insert right needle into both the first stitch on the DPN as well as the first stitch on the LN. Then, using both the tail and the working yarn, you’ll knit the stitches together. By working with both strands, it helps to reinforce the join.
After you do this, that first stitch will have a double-loop, as shown above. When you encounter this double-loop on the next round, just make sure to knit them together.

Step 5:

Then with just the working yarn, you’ll continue in the same manner until the rest of the DPN stitches have been worked.
Once all 4 stitches have been worked, it will look like this. You can then just put the DPN aside.

Step 6:

You’ll then just knit 3 stitches from the LN…
And then you’ll place a marker on the RN for BOR (pink marker shown above). The hem has now been joined and you’ll now be working in the round.

Note: When you knit the first stitch on the next round, you’ll notice that it’s really loose (as pictured below). Don’t worry, you can just cinch in the tails and it will tighten up. That tail can also be used to help reinforce the join when you’re weaving in ends at the end (scroll below for more visuals of this).

It’s normal for the first stitch to be loose!

Short Version: Cinching-Up Split Hem Join (when weaving in ends)

If you feel like your split hem join is not as tight as you’d like, it’s super simple to tighten it up just by how you weave in your tail that’s at the join. The photos below show you how I did it for my cowl. In all of the below, I’m working the duplicate stitch method of weaving in ends – click here for a tutorial on this technique.