The Not-Simon Cowl

Involving the brave new world of knitting design, misunderstood accessories and feline models.



So here it is, my first 'proper' downloadable knitting pattern.  Best of all, it's FREE!  Just click here  to enjoy the warm glow of money-less crafty shopping!  Bask in the smug thrill of knowing that you've fed your knitting habit without spending a penny!  Gaze in wonder at the beautiful download appearing on your desktop for exactly 0 monetary outlay!

(And then return and buy lots of other patterns for real money, because I've got a cat to feed, haha).

Speaking of cats...   Who is this dapper fellow modelling my cowl?

Isn't he handsome?  I would use him for all my modelling needs - except that a lot of my other stuff is baby clothes.  I've descended far enough in to Crazy-Cat-Lady-ness, I think knitting baby clothes and then putting them on the cat would be a level of crazy I couldn't come back from...  

So, the beautifully modelled cowl is my first and FREE design available to download. (Did I mention that before?).  The pun title comes from a very predictable confusion stemming from a non-unexpected lack of women's accessories by The Boyfriend.  In short, it is a Cowl (basically a circular scarf) and not a Cowell (a repugnant peddler of dross, whom I would not wish to have wrapped round my neck).

Here's my 'official blurb'...

This cowl is designed to show off the best of two shades of variegated wool, blending them together to create lovely colour shifts all along the finished piece.  

The deep rib makes for a wonderfully practical neck warmer – you can wear it pushed down deep into your collar for a simple, elegant look, but as soon as a chilly wind strikes you need only tug at the top and – voila! – it expands up to cover your ears and chin too.  Invaluable for sneaky seasonal weather when you don’t want to bundle up in a massive scarf, but still want to be prepared for sudden cold snaps.  

I had beginners very much in mind with this pattern - I know that when I was starting out I found it really aggravating that all the cowl patterns I could find seemed to be either in the round or involve grafting, neither of which I felt confident about.  I've designed this to be knit flat in one piece, with some sneaky tricks to avoid the difficult stuff`!  This is a guaranteed no-scare pattern!

The Bundle Blanket - #lksecretgarden

In which we cover shoulder escapes, medicating felines, Ancient Egyptian marriage ceremonies, and a knit-a-long blanket. 

I'm off work today, as earlier this week my shoulder joint decided to make one of its regular bids for freedom.  Fortunately since my last surgery these attempts have been less frequent, but are still pretty unpleasant.  More so in a way - when escape was a daily occurrence I could relocate things with a swift knock (amazing the things you get used to!) - nowadays the surgeons have built me a shoulder-joint-Alcatraz, so if it wants to throw itself out you know it really means it.

In an attempt to find something useful I was capable of doing amidst waves of painkiller haziness, I decided to give the cat his monthly bug treatment (like spot-on, but from the vets and I can never remember what it's called.  Some catchy Latin translation of 'spot-on', probably... 'Spot-on-ocet' or something).  He hates it.  Which is not all that surprising really - it he enjoyed having foul smelling oil dunked on the back of his neck it would be a bit odd.  

Anyway, despite bribing with Dreamies and an extra bowl of wet food, it ended in a brief wrestling match (which he won, as I have one working arm and he has four).  He stormed out though the cat flap yelling about how I'd betrayed every trust he'd ever held sacred.  I did get most of the stuff on him though.

Having being thus abandoned, I went for option 2 in the 'useful things to do on codeine' list.  (To be fair, it's a very short list).  I've been working on the 'Secret Garden' blanket knitalong since it started in 'Let's Knit' magazine in January.

Secret Garden Blanket by Sian Brown

My project 'to do' list is so long now that I've developed a real hang up about knitting things that are just for me.  I have so many things I want to knit as gifts for other people, as well as trying to get some designs finished and written up to sell, that I feel really guilty sitting down to work on something for myself.

However, I justified this KAL (besides "it's pretty and I want it!") by telling myself that I would learn a lot of new stitches and techniques, that it would be really good to finish a big project, and that the squares are small and quick enough to finish between other projects.  All this has turned out to be true, which is nice!  The squares are simple enough to do between other things, which makes them good 'knitting palette cleansers', particularly between wildly different projects, or two fiddly ones.
Some of the patterns are a bit complex, with quite a bit of cabling/counting etc, but on the whole once the pattern it set you can merrily go backwards and forwards with minimal thought.  Hence why they are useful go-to projects when feeling useless and foggy brained.

The wool I'm using is lovely, which helps.  I used the recommended yarn, which is Rico Design Essentials Soft Merino Aran.  It's 100% Merino Wool, and is so soft and springy.  The colours are gorgeous too, although the ones I'm using are different from those in the magazine (they were a bit bright and acidic for me, I've gone for deeper tones).

I'm a bit behind as I've had so much else on, and I'm making the larger size blanket, which involves knitting two of each square.  The first three months are now done though!

January:

Honeycomb and Double Parallelogram 

Colour - Blackberry

February:

Twisted Pyramids and Knotted Cable

Colour - Sage

March:

Diamond Lace and Garter Stitch Steps

Colour - Dusky Pink

An idea of the colours together so far...

I've picked 3 'red' shades and 3 'blue' shades, and a light, medium and dark of each, Hopefully they will work well together!  

In a rather lovely display of life intertwining with knitting projects (as it always should do, in my humble opinion), shortly after I started this blanket my boyfriend asked me (and The Cat) to move in with him!  He has been away in Afghanistan for months (feels like YEARS!), but was back on leave in February.  We were watching a documentary about the Ancient Egyptians by Dr Joanne Fletcher (a personal heroine of mine) in which she was describing marriage ceremonies.  Part of the marriage proposal was the ceremony of 'Bringing the Bundle', where one partner would bundle up their possessions in a blanket, and present themselves at their partner's front door.  If they are let in, then *huzzah* - the two of them are now living together.  

The Boyfriend was joking that I would be turning up on his doorstep with a huge pile of wool, a shedload of books and a cat (and not much else!).  Given the way that things are going, I should hopefully finish this blanket around (or before) July, when I'm due to move in.  We have decided that I will ceremoniously wrap the blanket around a book and The Cat and step over the threshold, thus marking the moment we move in together.  The blanket can represent my knitting, as well as a shared obsession with history and documentaries!

I should go and knit some more of it now...

P.S. If you want to watch Dr Joanne Fletcher talking about 'Bringing the Bundle' you can do so here...  This particular clip is for the school's version, so not what we originally saw, but still interesting!

'Moomin' Blanket Square

I've had a bit of a break from the Boyfriend Blanket, whilst I busy myself with other secret plans and clever tricks...

However, I've just finished (or Finnish-ed?) the latest square - my version of Moomintroll!  I've loved the Moomins ever since I was a little girl.  A few weeks ago I was trying to explain to The Boyfriend exactly what the Moomins were (I have their pictures on my travel bag, which he was looking at).  One thing led to another, and very soon afterwards we found ourselves with tickets to Helsinki, to visit the Land Of The Moomins in person!

So this square is in honour of our upcoming Finland trip.  Other Moomin fans, please feel free to use the pattern for your own (non profit) use, as long as it is good, noble, and in the spirit of the residents of Moomin Valley!

New Koala Afghan Square

Here is the new koala square!

If you'd like a different version (or - hey - if you're just really, really into koalas - no judgement here...) you can also check out my other free pattern 'Cute Koala Square', which you can find on the blog post here.  (Todays pattern is the more 'realistic' koala - 'realistic' obviously in terms of how accurately one can capture the finer details of a marsupial through the medium of knitted wool...)

For some reason Ravelry keeps taking down my 'Cute Koala' pattern, citing 'non-original artwork and/or trademarked or copyrighted characters'.  This is really rather irritating, as:

a) It is a completely original artwork/pattern, designed by me.  Unless Ravelry have also now branched into artistic criticism and are accusing me of being derivative, which seems both unlikely and also a little harsh.

b) As far as I know, the koala community has yet to advance enough to seek adequate legal representation concerning trademarking their own image.  Although to be fair I've never been to Australia, for all I know it could be full of marsupial universities, crammed with studious young koalas brushing up on the finer points of copyright law.

However, hopefully THIS pattern will escape the wrath of the Ravelry gods.  Here it is:

As always, it's free for your personal use, as long as your intentions are non-profitable and generally noble :)

Acorn-y Pun...

A defining feature in our relationship has been The Boyfriend's love of spectacularly cheesy puns.  I felt this really needed to be incorporated into the blanket somewhere, so I've given it my best shot!

Here it is - acorn-y pun to say "I'm nuts about you!"

I knitted mine using Hayfield Bonus Chunky in Grouse (815) and King Cole Chunky in Sea Spray (557), but it should work with any gauge of yarn. This photo shows the square as yet unblocked.

Feel free to use it for your own punning purposes!  (Provided they are non-profitable and nice, please.)

Koala me maybe?

As a good (part) Australian, it is imperative that The Boyfriend has a koala square on his afghan throw.  I actually designed two of these - one straight into the pattern generator off the top of my head, and a more realistic one first drawn out on graph paper.

I'll probably knit up the latter one first, as two koalas on one blanket may be pushing it a little, even for an Antipodian...  However, it seemed a waste to not do anything with the first design, so I'll post it here for anyone who fancies knitting a koala square!  I'll knit the other one and post it and the pattern in a few days.

Hope this knits up right for you if you try it!

Heart Squares

There's quite a few heart squares in this quilt - it is a 'Boyfriend Blanket' after all (soppy).  As all the squares are slightly different sizes, it's nice to have a nice simple motif to knit up quickly to fill in the gaps.

This first one was by Sarah Bradbury, based on a free pattern on her knitting-and.com website.

The second two were designed by me - please feel free to use the designs for yourself in any way (for non-profit use :) ).

I really like the Four Heart Square - I just wish I'd done it in colours with a greater contrast.  However, I'm sure I'll do a couple more, so I can experiment with colour variations then.

The second heart square I designed has our initials in it.  Obviously the chances of anyone having the same initials is a little slim, so please personalise the pattern however you please!  I've left the original letters on the design, to act as a guide for placing your own.

The Obligatory 'Wren' Blanket Square

In which Wren bemoans the lack of wrens immortalised through the art of knitting, decides to do it herself, and goes quickly insane.

Well, it had to be done.  You can't have a Wren-knitted blanket without a wren square, can you?

The first problem was, it turns out to be surprisingly difficult to find knitting patterns featuring wrens.  As in, impossibly difficult.  Zilch. None. Nada.  I couldn't find anything that would work.  So, I decided to design my own.  "How hard could it be?" I thought.  Yeah, have you seen my last post?  I'm not good with ambition vs my actual abilities.

I armed myself with some graph paper and a pencil.  Having recently completed my own (really pretty simple) designs for a Leo symbol and some hearts, I was feeling pretty confident.  Rather dangerously confident.  Because the second problem was: wrens are really a bit weird looking, when you get down to it.  Almost spherical, with surprisingly long, thin beaks, and their tails cocked almost vertically behind them.  If you already know what a wren looks like, then you'll recognise a drawing of one straight away.  If not, you'll think it's a drawing of bird done by someone who's really not very good at drawing birds...

The way I described it to my boyfriend was that "they look like normal birds - only gone a bit wonky".  At this point he made some unfavourable comparisons between this description and myself, which for the purposes of romance we shall gloss over.

Anyway, I was worried that the uneducated might see the blanket and just think it was a wonky bird.  However, I can't help the way wrens look - and if I was going to put a damn wren on the blanket then it was damn well going to look like a damn wren.  (I was starting to get a little frustrated at this point).  So I sat down and drafted a wren pattern.  And then did it again.  And again.  And again.

Herein lay the third problem.  A sensible, organised and patient person would have taken the very messy draft and spent some time redrawing it into a neat and easily readable final copy.  Unfortunately I am neither sensible, nor am I organised or patient.  I was excited about starting this square, so I jumped right in, semi illegible pattern and all.

I swore.  I got a cracking headache.  I swore some more.  I had to unpick entire rows.  I swore a lot more.  It took about five times as long as any other pattern that size had taken me.  But I finished.  And in the end, I really am quite proud of how it looks...

I could, of course, have left it at that.  However, a) I'd just discovered this cool little online knitting pattern generator, and b) as far as I knew, I had just created the world's only flat worked-afghan square-intarsia-wren-design.  What if, somewhere, somehow, someday somebody else wanted to knit a wren blanket square?  What would they do?  I felt I owed it to that unlikely future person to make the design available.

And so we come to the fourth and final problem.  My hand drawn design, illegible enough to begin with, was now covered in scribbles, crossings out and corrections from where I'd been following my stitches as I knitted.  The swearing and headaches were repeated, only this time in technicolour and with surround-sound.

But I did it.  Again.  And if anyone anywhere in the future is ever desperately searching for a wren afghan square, then this, my friend, is for you...

It's free for any non-profit/non commercial use you may wish to put it to!

My version was knitted in Hayfield Bonus Chunky 815 (Grouse) and King Cole Chunky 557 (Seaspray).

Knitting Maps - How Hard Could It Be?

In which Wren learns a valuable lesson about her own limitations, and finds a novel use for The Cat's ears...

Two squares here - one is the second one I knitted, the other is the most recent.  The (quite obvious) thing they have in common?  They're both maps.  (I'm pretty sure you'll have managed to work that one out for yourself...)  They were chosen for the Boyfriend Blanket as they are both very special places for him.

These also provide a useful illustration of the extremely common practice of mine - getting far too ambitious about what I can actually practically achieve.  "Oh!" says I "Of course I can knit a sofa sized blanket.  How hard could that possibly be?"  "Oh, knitting a map of Australia into an Afghan square is a great idea, how hard could it possibly be?"*  Now, to an experienced knitter, the answer is probably "Not hard at all, shut up Wren, you simpleton".  But I'm still on (just) 6 months knitting experience, and this probably was quite a bit beyond me.

However, I think they came out really well - this is really testament to the designs, which were both excellent.  The intarsia was definitely tricky - the coastlines are very fiddly! - but I discovered a useful form of assistance.  The Cat was, as usual, sprawled out over my lap during the entire process - snoring loudly and generally getting in the way.  I struck upon the genius idea of using the top of his head a yarn divider, placing the wool 'tails' on either side of his ears to keep them separate.  He was gainfully employed for once (albeit asleep), and I kept my wool neat and tangle free.  I really wish I could have taken a photo, but he had me firmly pinned in place...

This is the Australia map - it even has Tasmania there at the bottom!  The pattern is by Sarah Bradberry and is available for free from her fab site Knitting-and.com.  She has tons of free patterns there, it's well worth a look.  Her version uses seed stitch for the ocean - it looks really pretty, but I kept mine in plain stocking stitch to fit in with the look of the rest of the blanket.

And here's the British Isles map - once again, the detail is fabulous - it even has a tiny Anglesey! Amazing how you can show so much with so few stitches...  The pattern is by Marilyn Wallace and available for free on her Knitting Heaven On Earth blog.  I was a bit worried when I started this as the pattern is written, not charted, and I always worry about not being able to see exactly where I'm 'heading'.  However, as you can see, the pattern knits up perfectly!

The Australia Map is knitted in Hayfield Bonus Chunky 936, and King Cole Chunky 936.
The British Isles Map is knitted in King Cole Chunky 557 and 936.

*See also: "Oh! Doing a full time Masters degree and working full time at the same time, how hard could it possibly be?" "Oh! Finishing writing my thesis in the 2 months following a shoulder replacement, whilst starting a new job, how hard could it possibly be?" etc etc etc...

Squirrel!

This is the first square I finished for my 'Boyfriend Blanket'.

I showed him 'Up' for the first time early on in our relationship, and squirrels have become a bit of a running joke ever since then.

We've got into the habit of sending each other squirrel-related bits and pieces as presents.  I recently made him an 'I Love You' squirrel card...  Just because...  (I'm soppy when I'm in love, OK?  ;)  Moving swiftly on...)

I found the design for this knitted square on Ravelry - it's available from a lovely lady called Elisabeth Marino, who's posted the free pattern on her 'Knitting With Karma' blog.  Her example on Ravelry was a one colour dishcloth, but I did it in two colours as an intarsia piece.

It's knitted in Hayfield Bonus Chunky 841 (Claret), and a grey which I have very annoyingly lost the label for!

Leo Symbol Afghan Square

Square number one of the Boyfriend Blanket - a Leo symbol.  Because he's a Leo, obviously.

Although this isn't the first square I completed, it is the first I designed, and the first I managed to convert to a digital version.  (I used this free online generator - it's very useful for basic patterns).

The square is knitted in chunky wool, in intarsia.  However, I don't see any reason why it wouldn't work if you wanted to knit it in one colour dish-cloth style, alternating purls and knits to make the pattern.

If you are a Leo, or know one, feel free to use the pattern for your own not-for-profit use!

Wool used:  Hayfield Chunky 0936
                   Hayfield Chunky 841

Knit knit knit...

In which the cat commits a heinous crime, and my attempts to resolve the situation leave me committed to a massive new project...

So, I have a new boyfriend.  Well, he's not quite so new at this point, it's been a few months.  But he is very lovely.  He also has a lovely house.  In that house is a lovely sofa.  On that sofa was a lovely crocheted blanket.  Then The Cat visited.  I think we can all tell where this is going.

Apparently as they age, cats find it more and more difficult to retract their claws.  And I'm sure The Cat did not mean anything more sinister than a nice stroll across the back of the sofa.  However, having heard a scuffle and a thud, followed by some pitiful yowling, we rushed into the living room to discover him completely cocooned in what had formally been a very smart blanket-throw.  The previous tasteful and neat decorative holes formed by the crochet had now been transformed into less artistic rents, roughly the length and breadth of a cat's leg.

Lovely boyfriend was lovely about the whole thing (once he'd finished laughing), but I was racked with guilt for my association with a manic, blanket-murdering feline, and the death of what I assumed was a rather expensive piece of home decor.  It was in this mood that I made the somewhat rash promise to knit him a replacement blanket...

Actually, this project has turned out to be very enjoyable, although absolutely massive!  I'm doing it in afghan squares, which means that each piece is quick enough for me to finish before I get bored.  Each square has a different design - some courtesy of the fine members of Ravelry, some designed by me.  I'm intending on posting each square as I go, complete with the patterns (if it is my own design).

Oh, and the murdered blanket turned out to be from IKEA, and cost about a tenner.  Typical!