Two Cowls & the 1898 Hat

When I work continuously on large projects, I find myself longing for small, quick ones. That’s when I also indulge in bulky yarns and large needles.

This year, I worked on several ones, three of which are two cowls and one hat.

Using just one skein of super bulky yarn and a pair of 20mm needles, I worked on a simple cowl. It’s main goal was to exercise the horizontal Herringbone stitch. I wanted to try this particular stitch for a long time, but it constantly remained in the to-do list. Given the fact that I don’t own any circular needles above 10mm, I had to knit the cowl flat instead of in the round. I hoped that I would be able to create an almost invisible join in the seam. Given the nature of the stitch, that was not easy to achieve, and I am not sure if it’s possible at all. Maybe if the edges are knitted in stockinette or garter stitch instead of a simple selvedge stitch?

The other cowl I worked on, was a piece that was inspired by Amirisu’s Little Hobbit Cowl, which I had spotted as soon as it was released, in 2015. This is pattern that is available only as a kit, in Japan. So as I was unable to purchase it, I took inspiration from it and created my own version. Using a squeechy soft skein Filati Tre Sfere Lana Bio Ecologica I had in my stash, I created a similar shape, but with various modifications. I added Japanese short rows at the lower back and worked the triangle edge as a combination of stockinette and garter stitch, instead of plain garter stitch. The last mod was due to my fear of running out of yarn; since I had purchased it some time ago, I didn’t know if I would be able to find a second one again. The other modification was the addition of a pair of mushrooms instead of pom-poms. Pom poms get easily destroyed, that’s why I opted for a pair of whimsy crochet add-ons. The idea came from this super awesome project. The mushrooms were made after the Toadstools & Mushrooms pattern and using several fingering weight leftovers. I am very pleased with how it turned out and I was thoroughly impressed with the yarn. It is soft, with nice colors and great elasticity. I would definitely use it in a large size garment.

The third project took much longer time to complete as it does not make use of bulky yarn. I had some random grey yarn in my stash (for which I only know the yarn company, the label did not provide more info), and with which I wanted to create a man’s hat. I searched Ravelry for ideas until I stumbled upon the 1898 Hat by Kristine Byrnes. It is a very practical and clever design; I enjoyed making it. Especially since it deviates from the traditional style of making hats and uses two directions of knitting. I recommend it for anyone that would like to try a new technique, also one that produces a warm, and very practical result. In the pictures, the hat may seem small, but it actually covers properly all the areas it should cover.