The Hiberknitting Cowl is knit in the round with four sections that play with colorwork and different stitch patterns. I’d never knit a cowl before but it looked like it would be a fun knit. I really enjoyed moving onto the next section and working with such pretty yarn. Keep reading for my experience knitting the Hiberknitting Cowl by Stephen West:
Yarn
I had been saving this beautiful fade set from La Bien Aimee, but I decided to finally use it for the Hiberknitting Cowl. The fade came with seven colors in 50 gram skeins – Peanut Butter & Jelly, Liesl, Gateway Purple, Parchment, Waterlillies, Life Aquatic & Vespa Graffiti. To supplement some of the sections, I wanted to use some left over Kumo from my Penguono project. I love Kumo because it’s super fluffy and soft, but also chunky enough to sub for fingering weight yarn.
This project calls for sport weight yarn, but I just used what I had and I liked the resulting fabric so I didn’t worry too much about it.
Hiberknitting Cowl
Section 1 – Knit/Purl Pattern
I chose the more solid, light gray Parchment color to really show the knit/purl pattern. I used my US 5 needles with a 8″ cable for the entire project in the round. The pattern was easy to follow and I really liked seeing the design come together.
By the end of the section, you increase stitches which I think is meant to help with maintaining the gauge with the colorwork.
Section 2 – Colorwork
Because my yarn was from a fade kit, all of my colors are pretty similar. I wasn’t getting the contrast I wanted, and on some of the triangles, it was hard to even tell which color I was working on. I really wanted to use this set, so I kept going.
I actually love how it turned out. The contrast is definitely subtle in some areas, but I love the overall vaporwave vibe.
Section 3 – Mosaic Knitting
With section 3, I kept my low contrast vibe going by using my Kumo in Ponyo & Sosuke. I really like the texture, and it was fun working mosaic knitting in this section.
I made a modification to my Penguono to include mosaic knitting also. This type of stitch looks a lot more intricate than it really is, and it’s a lot easier than normal colorwork. I enjoyed knitting this section, but I was ready to move on to the stripes.
Section 4 – Stripes
For the stripes, I used the Peanut Butter & Jelly mini with Anemone Kumo and I love the color and texture. The Peanut Butter & Jelly colorway is my favorite; it’s what I used to make my Favo Sweater and I’m using it in my Treelight Shawl now.
Blocking & Seaming
If I would have thought about the construction a little more before I started knitting, I would have knit a provisional cast-on. Then, I would have grafted the live stitches together with the Kitchener stitch.
Since I didn’t plan for that, the pattern has you bind off as normal and seam the ends together with the cast on edge. I blocked the cowl so everything would be lined up and smooth before I started seaming the ends.
I used the mattress stitch to seam my ends. I first learned the mattress stitch from my Favo Sweater, and I love how invisible it is. Because this is a loop, and not a flat object, it was a little tricker to seam.
Overall Thoughts
I really enjoyed knitting the Hiberknitting Cowl. It goes by pretty quickly because of how small it is, but there’s a lot of variety with each section. I enjoyed knitting in the round and using my beautiful fade from La Bien Aimee. This is a prefect knit to watch tv to, or to take with you on the go because it’s repetitive, and none of the stitch patterns is very complicated.
Check out my Ravelry for more pictures and my other finished objects!
