The results of my experiment are in: I am a lazy blogger.
As it turns out, I am only a slightly less lazy knitter. While the blog slept, I designed, knit, and wrote up three patterns. I’ve also taught over a hundred people to knit and been interviewed by a celebrity. And that’s just the knitting stuff.
For now, I leave the blog with the first of my free pattern offers: the Lava Flow Cowl. This started life as an idea for a möbius cowl with reversible cables, and grew from there. It’s written for the luscious Mirasol K’acha, but could be worked in any single ply yarn. Choose something soft so it feels nice against your neck.
As written, this uses two and a third balls. You can use slightly larger needles and probably still squeeze a cowl out of three balls without having to go into a fourth. You can check out the pattern page on Ravelry, or download it directly from this link. You don’t have to be on Ravelry to download directly — how cool is that?
sheknitupthatball
/ 15 January, 2010W0000t!! All the shiny newness and … YAY! Everything looks fabulous, Melknitta.
Annie Bee
/ 15 January, 2010Ooh, Dixie, that’s really lovely! I’ve always had a thing for those really long, unudulating cables, especially ones like this that are reversible. Hmm, so many possibilities, yarnwise!
Annie Bee
/ 15 January, 2010One question, though: you don’t specify whether to hold the cable needle in front or behind your work. I suppose it doesn’t matter, as long as each knitter is consistent within each project, but it might be worth actually saying that?
Dixie
/ 15 January, 2010I fixed the pattern. That was a pretty glaring omission. The cable was written as C24F in my notes, and the F didn’t make it into the computer. Oops.
I don’t think it actually matters, but I haven’t done the thinking to make sure that it doesn’t. I’m still a little nervous about whether the cables work as written; I compressed the instructions and I’m hoping I did it right.
Kelroc
/ 11 January, 2011I just want to be clear on the cable row, Take the first 12 stitches put on cable needle and K2, P2 3times, then do the same with the stitches on the cable needle. Will that leave a strand behind the work?
Dixie
/ 11 January, 2011That’s right. It didn’t leave a strand behind the work on mine, but I pulled the first stitch (right after putting the first 12 on the cable needle) pretty right to prevent any kind of stranding. It does pucker the fabric a bit, as you would expect a large cable to do.