Beautiful hand painted wool evokes the Northern Lights in the Borealis Cowl. This compact cowl uses two contrasting colorways, playing hand painted colors off a neutral background. The design will work up quickly in Aran to bulky weight yarn. The cowl is worked in the round from the bottom up and is seamless.

This is an intermediate level pattern. Knitters should have experience with stranded knitting technique, including long carries. Knitters also must be able to follow complex charts. However, there is no shaping, and the cowl construction is very simple.

This pattern is sized adult small/medium: 10.5” height and 21” circumference.

There are two ways to create a wider cowl.
-First, using a bulkier yarn will increase both the circumference and the height of the cowl (see the details of my second cowl below).
-Second, adding another repeat of the Borealis Chart (working the chart three times instead of two) will add quite a bit to the circumference of the cowl.
Please note that either option will require more yardage for both colorways.

The gauge for Aran weight yarn is 17 stitches and 20 rows over 4” in stranded stockinette stitch, blocked.

This pattern can be made with any two Aran or bulky weight yarns in contrasting colorways.

The first cowl shown here uses:
KnitPicks Muse (100% Superwash Merino; 114 yards/100g): Main Color (Bare #27867), 1 hank; Contrast Color 1 (Impulse Hand Painted #27861), 1 hank.

My second and slightly larger cowl uses:
Main Color: Manos del Uruguay Wool Clasica (100% Corriedale; 138 yards/100g): #106, 1 hank
Contrast Color 1: Drops Nepal (65% Wool, 35% Alpaca; 82 yards/50g): off white #0100, 2 balls

You will also need one set of 24” circular needles in size US 10 or whatever size necessary to obtain gauge, and one set of 24” circular needles one size smaller for the ribbing.

This pattern includes two versions of the chart, with reversed colors in the second version, so knitters can choose between a dark or light background.