My first pattern on Ravelry, Helixally, was an experiment and a stashbuster. My second was Furrows, a simple cowl constructed in a broken rib stitch. Annika Strandhed is a stashbusting experiment that started with the following idea. What if you swap the purl stitches in the broken rib pattern for knit stitches in a different colour and create a two-colour stranded pattern? As it turned out you get a bold geometric design that sort of looks like a row of Hs or a picket fence. The name is inspired by my fictional crime fighting heroine, Annika Strandhed, a Norwegian murder investigator with a love of boats. She also spelled her name incorrectly on an application form and became known as Annika Stranded. She is a creative thinker who solves crimes through reference to history, Norwegian Sagas, Shakespeare and Ibsen, so taking a pattern and viewing it from a different angle seemed fitting. My version is in two contrasting shades, but it would be interesting to see what subtlety and nuance might be created using similar shades, tones, multicoloured yarns on plain or two multicoloured yarns together.

My cowl used 76g (about 3 ounces) in total, 40g of the main colour and 36g of the contrast. This equates to about 90m (98yards) and 80m (89yards) respectively.

I hope that I have inspired you to have a little experiment yourselves and look forward to seeing your versions of the Annika Strandhed Cowl.