I’ve been on a garter stitch obsession of late so it was time for a change. I wanted to make something that was fairly simple, but with a little bit of spice that would show off the gradient yarn in a fun way. I chose the Charcoal background as it shows off the brights in the Dirty Hippie colorway so well.
What’s fun about this pattern stitch is that you really only ever knit half the stitches on any single round; you will be knitting two stitches, then slipping two, so though there is a lot of yardage to this design, it still goes quite fast. The fabric it creates is a nice dense yarn, with the pattern showing on both sides. You can confuse your knitting friends when you tell them that it is indeed knit and not woven!

Since less of the colored yarn is needed, at intervals throughout the ball I wound off about 10 yards to hold that back for use in the fringe later on. The transition in the gradient is slow enough that you can remove a fair amount of extra yarn from each major color group and rejoin the ball without a visible jump in the color.

Though I’ve used bright colors here I think the cowl would be equally striking in a single color gradient such as shades of Denim on an Ecru background. I think the trick would be to be sure you have enough contrast throughout any gradient changes versus the background you choose.

FINISHED MEASUREMENTS
Circumference: 33 inches/84 cm
Length: 11 inches/28 cm without fringe, 13.5 inches/34.5 cm with fringe