While I was teaching at a show last fall–I can’t remember which one since my children ate my brain–I stopped by the WEBS booth to see what was new. I left with a few skeins of Northampton Sport, a heathery sportweight yarn. I had trouble deciding which color to pick, so I grabbed three skeins that looked like they might work well together. I played around a bit and ended up with this: the Lorenda Cowl.
It’s an easy knit and the change in colors keeps you from getting bored. Best of all, it’s a versatile pattern. I love the look of the heathered solids, but I can imagine many different color choices that would look beautiful: three shades of the same color (say, sage, celery and olive green) or three handpaints or a mix of handpaints and solids, or maybe black plus a really high-contrast color (tomato red? a neon pink?). There’s no law that says you have to use exactly three colors, either. In fact, this would look darling as a way to use oddballs and leftover bits from other projects so long as you pick yarns that all knit at about the same gauge (in this case, six stitches per inch, Category 2 of the Craft Yarn Council Chart).* You can purchase this pattern via my Ravelry pattern shop by clicking on this link.
The lovely model is a friend of my oldest kid’s and she was, as you can see, a natural. She was a really good sport, since we took the shots on a very cold day, wandering around Bryn Mawr in search of good light.
In case you’re wondering where the name “Lorenda” comes from, I’ve taken to using my genealogy research as a source for my BBF pattern names. One of my ancestors had a sister named Lorenda and I thought it was a pretty name–and even better, there were no other patterns on Ravelry with that name (and these days, it’s really tough to find a pattern name that no one has ever used before!).
If you’re interested in the lovely Northampton Sport that I used in the sample, be advised that you can purchase three balls for less than $15 and incidentally, WEBS is having their anniversary sale right now…Boris approves!
*Any interest in BBF kits? I suppose I could put together 3 handpaints to play with. Let me know in the comments if you think you’d be interested in that.
