Magentalicious Cowl

Magentalicious Cowl

First of all, I don't want to hear anything about my unimaginative name this week - I cycled through at least 847 other options that were significantly worse (including the "Better Than Barney" - named, of course, after the purple dinosaur. Really, I was scraping the bottom of the barrel). So since we're not going to talk about the name, let's just talk about the design, which is incredibly quick-knitting in a super bulky fiber, but still has a little bit of added pizazz with a single dropped stitch design. Oh, and it's also narrower at the back of the neck, so it tucks easily under a jacket.

Yarn: Lang Yarns Malou (70% Alpaca, 20% Nylon, 10% Wool; 71 yards [65 meters]/50 grams); #0166 Magenta - two skeins

I forgot to take a super close-up
but here's more detail of the
dropped stitch design.

Needles: Straight needles in size US 15

Notions: Tapestry needle

Gauge: 10 stitches = 4 inches in stockinette

So let's start by casting on 18 stitches provisionally (I didn't call for a larger needle size for the provisional cast-on because the gauge is already big enough that you may not have larger needles laying around. But remember that you're going to want your provisional stitches to be big enough to get your needle through them when you pick them back up!). Anyway, once that's done we'll knit some set-up rows, as follows. Remember that your 3 slipped stitches are creating a faux i-cord edging so you can pull 'em as tight as you like!

Set-up Row 1 (right side): slip 3 stitches with yarn in back (sl3 wyib), k12, sl3 wyib

Set-up Row 2: purl

Knit set-up rows 1 & 2 twice. Then we'll knit one transition row, as follows:

Transition Row: sl3 wyib, k1, (make 1, k1) 10 times, yo, k1, sl3 wyib (29 stitches)

And once that bad boy is done, we'll continue to knit in the same pattern we used for our set-up (even if we're not calling it that anymore). So let's continue like so:

Row 1 (wrong side): purl

Row 2: sl3 wyib, knit until you have 3 stitches left in row, sl3 wyib

Knit rows 1 & 2 until piece measures roughly 21" and you've just finished a wrong side row. Then we'll work one more transition row, like so:

Transition Row (right side): sl3 wyib, k1, (k2tog) 10 times, drop next stitch from needle and unravel back to yarn over from first transition row, k1, sl3 wyib (18 stitches)

Complete this transition row, and then we'll go back to our original pattern, like so:

Row 1 (wrong side): purl

Row 2: sl3 wyib, k12, sl3 wyib

Knit rows 1 & 2 until piece's total length measures roughly 24" and you've just finished a right-side row. Clip yarn tail, leaving a roughly 2' tail for later grafting, and transfer live stitches to a scrap of yarn and block. Seam live stitches from either end of the piece using the Kitchener stitch. Finally, tuck in ends!