When I first started designing I spent a lot of time paging through Japanese stitch dictionaries (and still do!) and found the main pattern used in this cowl. It reminded me of an Egyptian cartouche and I visualized it in a deeper vibrant red. That design, Cartouche Shawl, was published in Knitty, Winter 2011. I’ve since used these stitch patterns in the Cartouche Slouchy Beret and the Cartouche Stole; however, I still wasn’t done with this design and knew that I wanted to do a cowl and fingerless gloves to complete the set.

And here is the result, the penultimate piece in the Cartouche series – the Cartouche Cowl.

Fossetta means “dimple” in Italian and this stitch pattern really reminds me of dimples in fabric. It may be late for winter in some parts of the world, but really, can one with ever go wrong with a cozy cowl or hat?

The red-brown cowl is knit with Verdant Gryphon’s beautiful Mondegreen worsted yarn, a divine concoction of Blue Faced Leicester, Silk and Camel. (A mondegreen is a misheard phrase, especially a song lyric and this colourway is “I Like Smoking Ice Cream”) Mondegreen is a seasonal yarn for Verdant Gryphon – carried only in the fall and winter – and they have good stock levels at the moment. Once you knit with this yarn, you’ll want more of it so this is the time to stock up. The cowl uses two skeins and the hat one.

The blue set is knit with Lang Yarns’ Yak, another luscious yarn made up of 50% merino and 50% yak. Seriously cuddly stuff (and if you want mittens to go with it, I recommend this pattern knit in this yarn).

Get all the details of the Fossetta set here.

My Grandfather passed away earlier this week after a long fight with cancer. I created the Mindfulness Cowl as a meditative process as I remembered time spent with him over my life.

During a time of remembrance, I chose to knit this lace cowl in the Lotus lace pattern in Firefly, a yarn that has a subtle sheen. The meaning of a red lotus is love, compassion, and all the activities of the heart.

Mindfulness Cowl