I wanted to make a cowl using the leftover wild silk from Thea’s Faded Purple Shawl. The strong contrast in the variegation made it difficult to choose a pattern b/c any stitch pattern is likely to be somewhat overcome by the colour changes. I wanted it to be fairly easy to knit but not too plain and also I wanted it in the round. Finally, I decided on this pattern without adding the beads …

Now, I love icord edges. I think they usually look fantastic. However, I don’t like the idea of either having to come back and knit the icord to the cast on edge later nor the cast on method where you knit the icord to length and then pick up stitches along it. So I came up with a method of doing the icord and creating the cast on all at once - it is really simple!!! It is a little bit awkward until you get the hang of it. So start the icord as you normally would but b/f passing the stitches back to the left needle, do a yarnover then pass them all back to the left needle, then knit the icord stitches but leave the yo stitch on the left needle without knitting it, yo and pass the stitches back to left needle. Continue knitting the icord stitches only, creating a yo and slipping them back to left needle until the yos have created all of your cast on stitches - voila! Icord cast on completed!!!! … It might be easier to think of it as: knit icord stitches, bring yarn to front b/w needles, slip stitches back to left needle, take yarn to back over the top of left needle, knit icord stitches etc etc ….

*… Another improvement (it makes the tension firmer rather than being floppy and needing to be knit tbl on the next round): knit the icord stitches then cast on one stitch using the backwards loop method b/f passing all the stitches back to the left needle.**

Knitted until there were about 30 pattern repeats vertically then did a 3 stitch icord bind off. Now I am toying around with a tight 2 stitch icord (on 3.5mm needles) to see whether I like it threaded through the icord cast on so that the cowl can be cinched at one end. Maybe some sort of embellishment on the cord ends, too …

I used 3.5mm needles for the cord and leaves only. The cowl was knitted with 4.5mm. Really pleased with how the cord (and leaves) turned out but I think the cord took just as long to knit as the rest of the cowl. The cord is a two stitch icord knitted very firmly. If I had used smaller needles I probably wouldn’t have had to make the knitting tension so tight. The cord is small and neat and has a nice amount of elasticity (which was a surprise). I will definitely use this method again to make cords even though it is a bit slow. I just made up the leaves as I went. There is a 2 St icord on each edge.