Wintergreen Cowl

Designed by Ellen Gormley, and made in the Bruges Lace style, the easy "Wintergreen cowl" is made in the Fiber Company's Luxurious "Road to China" yarn. It is a Baby Alpaca, Silk, Camel, Cashmere blend. The project is one of 4 accessory projects in a new Interweave e-book "A Snowflake Story".  I hope you like it!

A New Year, A New Crochet Cowl Free Pattern

Ravelry Project Page

Everyone, especially beginning crocheters, should know about Judi's Building Block Cowl. It's a lovely and warm new crochet cowl scarf designed by crochet teacher Judith Weingarden. As she explains below, she had crochet beginners in mind as she designed this mobius cowl. 

Ravelry Project Page

It's an instantly downloadable crochet pattern at her new Crocheted Jewels website. You can also see it in different yarns in Ravelry and its photo set.


Here's what Judi told me the other day about her mobius cowl design: 


     Because many of my students are beginners, I wanted a cowl pattern that would use only single crochet and chain stitches. I teach crocheting at 2 locations in Avon, CT - Michaels and Yarnover.

Ravelry Project Page

     The pattern is a mobius, and can be worked up quickly.

     I am offering it as a free download on my new website, and thought this crochet cowl design blog would be another great place to offer it. I am thrilled to be dipping my hook into the world of design! I love teaching and crocheting, and am really excited to be combining the two!  


Thanks Judi for letting us know about your new free crochet pattern!
Here is the direct download link to the pattern.

Two New Slip Stitch Cowl Crochet Patterns

Thaxton Hooded Cowl in thermal Slip Stitch Crochet

The roasty-toastiest cowl I've ever crocheted is also my first cape-like hooded crochet cowl ("snood" by recent definition). It's for practical reasons: the Thaxton Hooded Cowl design came to mind after a bitter cold front last winter made my favorite Orbit Cowl feel like mere springtime lace. 

Undaria: one of many ways of wearing 

The Thaxton downloadable crochet pattern is $5.99. The pattern includes two ways to seam it, and two sizes for using less yarn if desired. 


It's still in a tech-edited early release version in Ravelry. When I hear back from my pattern tester (the holidays slowed things down!), I'll revise with her always-valuable feedback and release the final pattern version. If you buy the early release version, you'll be automatically alerted by email when the updated version of the pattern is available for you to download. I love this built-in feature of Ravelry!

Thaxton seamed 2nd way: tall cowl quadruple-rolled

Thaxton is so warm because it's: 

• densely ribbed, and 
• stretchy-snug, and 
• half alpaca fiber. The alpaca content of the yarn I used piles on even more warmth, much like angora would. (Alpaca and angora are both warmer than wool.) 

Isn't the raspberry color delicious?

Undaria as 2-skein long twirl scarf

The other cowl, Undaria FlutterScarf, is a one-skein neckwarmer, and also a two-skein project if you prefer a standard-length long twirl scarf. Scroll down for more views of this versatile draping-fluttering-thing!

Draping Undaria 1-skein

Wondering where the name comes from? Well, I saw a softly rippling knitted scarf, and thought of how fun it would be to use slip stitch crochet in short rows to create that look. 

One of many ways to drape
Undaria 1-skein

With the gentle sea-green color shifts of the Mini-Mochi yarn--which I enjoyed buying at my friend Sheryl Means' yarn shop Yarntopia--I kept thinking of the soft ripples of Wakame seaweed in miso soup. Undaria is the botanical name for a type of seaweed. I also like that "Undaria" sounds similar to "undulating."


When the final Thaxton version is available, both of these cowl scarves will also show on the DesigningVashti pattern page where you can see all Slip Stitch Crochet designs so far. Slip stitches are so fun to design with.

Ten Crochet Cowls for Men!

Photo ©Patrick Hassel-Zein

Run right over to CrochetBlogger's Crochet Concupiscence blog post for a great photo series of ten men in manly crochet cowls! 


To whet your appetite, an eleventh is pictured at left: Robin's Hood, a hooded Tunisian crochet design by Patrick Hassel-Zein. 


Patrick is a 2011 nominee for the Crochet Liberation Front's Flamie Awards for Best New Crochet Designer and Best Crochet Designer of Mens Wear. 


Robin's Hood is part of a Tunisian crochet pattern book in English here, in Icelandic here, and in Swedish here.

A Crochet Cowl to Offer Comfort

Drew Emborsky designed a new crochet cowl wrap! The pattern is now available as part of The Crochet Dude's brand-new book, Hug It Out: Nine Crochet Designs to Offer Comfort. (see book cover below.)


I know from previous cowl blog posts that a soft, generous-size mobius is a very popular cowl style. It can be worn several ways with effortless grace to warm the neck, shoulders, and more. Its comfort adds easy style.

 See Hug it Out at Amazon.com

I asked Drew to tell me more about his new cowl design. 
He wrote, 
"I created this cowl because of all the great ways it can be worn. Especially for someone with mobility issues, it's nice to be able to wrap the shoulders without the bulkiness of a shawl, have a fluffy scarf just by pulling it up around the neck, then going right to a hoodie if the need arises - all without having to swing a crocheted garment around themselves. And even with all that function, I hope it makes her feel pretty too!!"

The Perfect Stitch for Fall Crochet Cowls!

- - Free Crochet Pattern Alert! see below - -

Slip Tectonics Cowl combines two kinds of slip stitches so that it
is self-shaping. This gives it easy-chic looks and comfort.

Thaxton Hood Cowl, pattern coming soon

I'm in love with my new cowls made with the super stretchy, warm, soft, snug, and stylish crochet slip stitch rib short rows. So, I've created a free crochet pattern called "Slip Slope Scarf" to help introduce this technique, see below.

I have to specify each of those words in bold because short rows and slipped stitches are both much more common in knitting than crochet. 

Slip Slope Scarf (free pattern)
Pattern includes guidelines for
making a loop scarf and
moebius-style infinity scarf. 

Not only that, in crochet, combining slip stitches and short rows is rare. When I do see crochet short rows, it's more often for "soakers" (diaper covers) in regular crochet, and for Tunisian crochet. 


The few short-rowed slip stitch designs I've found so far have been for hats--and I can see why! What a fabulous fabric for toasty hats that keep ears covered!

Side view of the self-shaping  
Slip Tectonics Cowl  

(For some examples of these non-cowl short row designs, see my Crochet Inspirations Newsletter Issue #29.)

Slip Slope Scarf
as scarf

Personally I prefer to wear cowls as hats when I need them. Also, right now I'm loving the new textures and color patterning I can do with crochet slip stitch rib short rows worked flat, rather than in the round as hats usually are. That's where I'm at in my crochetin' journey.


Below is a photo from my free online tutorial. It shows the slip stitch short rows in progress. 
More at this DesigningVashti blog post.

I just found a new cowl! Click here to go see it. Really. You'll love it!