Caroline Cowl! It’s modular!

Use shawl-knitting techniques and self-striping yarn to create a unique, angular cowl. Buttons allow it to be fastened and worn multiple ways, offering a surprising amount of coverage.

Caroline Cowl was designed originally for handspun, but spinning your own isn’t necessary! A heavy sockweight or sportweight commercial yarn with similar self-striping color design would work as well.

The painful part: it does require you to cut the handspun you’re using. Also, you’ll need at least one long circular spare needle in the size you used for gauge.

Materials:

• 250-300 yds of handspun chain-plied 12-14 WPI merino wool; shown in Malabrigo Yarns Nube in Piedras and Wool for the Dame Corriedale in unknown colorway. (Don’t spin or don’t want to? Substitute a self-striping sportweight, such as Noro Silk Garden Sock.)
• 1 24”+circular needle in US5/3.75mm, or size needed for gauge.
• 3 spare needles—or one long spare circular—in the same size used for work, or a size or two smaller
• 7 ¾-⅝” buttons
• Tapestry needle
• Optional: sewing needle & thread for button attachment

Gauge:
Gauge is 10 sts and 18 rows over 2“/5cm in pattern as written, blocked. Please be sure to check your gauge.

Note on Spare Needles:
Use anything that works well for you and keeps the stitches live; you could even put them on smooth yarn and transfer them to a needle later.

For the second sample (earthy/salmon colors), I actually used bamboo skewers so that I could lay the triangles out in order.

For the first one, I’m pretty sure I used a long spare needle to hold all the triangles I needed to set aside.

Note on Yarn:
This .PDF does not include a tutorial on how to spin the yarn used, but for reference, it’s a chain-plied sportweight spun from hand-dyed wool top in both cases. This technique works well for this pattern, since it results in distinct stripes and a nice fade from one color to another. Other techniques that would also work include fractal plying, or sportweight singles, even though I really do like the look of the chained yarn. It’s neat.

Here’s an article from Schacht about chain plying, if you need a starting point; there are plenty of more visual tutorials online if it looks like a technique you’d enjoy. Heck yes, handspinning!