This is part of a project to encode the word COURAGE in various ways useful to a knitter. The project is dedicated to my friend Nancy Tancredi who, for months (perhaps years) before her death, posted the daily status “Unity, Vigilance, Courage.” I have encoded these words in a variety of lace projects, following the methods of Naomi Parkhurst. I find Courage a particularly strong wish for friends undergoing personal trials.

Ogham is an ancient alphabet found in Ireland. I have used a simple substitution cipher to write the word “courage” in this alphabet. A transliterator can be found at https://ogham.co/. This iteration is knit as a neck warmer using colorwork and can be worn to the doctor’s office. Or any time, really, that a person needs a reminder.

Rows 2 - 5 in the Right Chart spell the word COURAGE using the Ogham alphabet. To make this design I used left-right as well as top-bottom mirror images of this word to promote symmetry.

The chart can be applied to the brim of a hat, the border of a scarf or blanket, the edge of a sweater.

Fresco by Classic Elite is no longer being made. Any soft sport weight, heavy fingering yarn will produce a cowl of these dimensions. The cowl will look well in any weight yarn, either thicker or thinner, but your yardage will vary.

Please contact me at susan@beeberrywoods.com with questions, suggestions, or corrections.

This pattern is offered for free because we need more COURAGE in the world.