Sometimes the best things in life are simple and free!
The Super Simple Cowl is an easy and quick knit that takes 50 grams / 200 meters of 4ply yarn and 25 grams / 210 meters of Moonbroch.
The cowl is knitted on 5.5mm circular needles (so no seams and only 2 ends to finish off). This gives a light fabric that’s surprisingly warm thanks to the mohair fluff.
I’m far from the world quickest knitter, but I made the sample shown during few hours in front of the tv – and it’s the kind of blissfully mindless project that’s perfect for relaxing with.
So if you’ve got some spare 4ply yarn it’s likely you’re already half way there. Knitting and crochet patterns tend to specify a generous yardage, and I’ve seen figures of between 10% and 20% quoted as an acceptable safety margin.
No one wants to run out of yarn, and as a dyer I’m always grateful to customers who don’t com back to me asking for an extra matching skein of a yarn they bought years ago because they lost at yarn chicken. Yup, that happens.
The kits we’ve put together for this cowl pair a multicoloured skein of Moonbroch with coal BFL and silk.
Using a multicolour and a plain will tone the multicolour down a little – perfect if you’ve got a skein of wildly coloured yarn that you fell in love with but haven’t found the perfect project for. So if you’ve got lots of bright 4ply then choosing a more neutral Moonbroch will work.
Another possibility is combining two semi solid colours – and you’ve got lots of options here.
If you choose a light and a dark yarn you’ll end up with a marled fabric.
If you pick two colours which are very different but which have the same tone you’ll end up with a fabric that’s like one of those glorious silks that shifts colour because it’s woven with two contrasting colours. If you want to check how different the tone is on two colours take a quick photo on your phone and convert it to greyscale – colours with a similar tone will look the same, while colours with a different tone will differ more. The ultimate version of this is black and white yarn – in theory the greyscale image should be the same and the colours as far from each other as is possible.
When we dyed the latest batch of Moonbroch we split some of the skeins into 25g lots – so one of those gives you all the fluff you need for a quick cowl.
One final thought about using up stash yarn – if you don’t have 50 grams of one 4ply you could create a stunning stripey version of this cowl by using several smaller leftovers. The Moonbroch helps pull everything together making it look like the whole thing was always planned this way.
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