Eagle by Michael Vloedman

Eagle

Knitting
October 2017
Bulky (7 wpi) ?
6 stitches and 10 rows = 2 inches
in Garter
US 11 - 8.0 mm
750 - 800 yards (686 - 732 m)
English

My Favorite knits are the ones that are basically wearable blankets. I mean, if you could be cozier, why wouldn’t you be?
So I endeavored to make a cowl of Epic proportion, but one that you could actually wear without constantly fussing with it. By making the piece wider at the bottom and narrower on top, even though it’s quite enormous, it’s shaping allows you to wrap it around twice and it will still lay nicely against your body without that weird extra cowl flap that usually slaps against your face, or opens up in just the right spot to funnel falling snow down your neck.

This beast is about 8 feet around at the bottom, 6 feet around at the top and just under 1 foot tall. It’s designed to be over the top large and fabulous, but if you want a more manageable size you could do it out of a worsted weight on a US8 to shrink it down by about a third. Depending on your gauge, yardages should be about the same, but I would give myself an extra 30 or 40 yards per color to be safe if you want to go the worsted route.

I made my sample out of Malabrigo Chunky:
Color A: 400 Yards (4 skeins Black)
Color B: 100 Yards (1 skein Frank Ochre)
Color C: 100 Yards (1 skein Fucsia)
Color D: 100 Yards (1 skein Ravelry Red)
Color E: 100 Yards (1 skein Bobby Blue)

The color-work in “Eagle” is all done using the mosaic technique. If you’re not familiar with mosaic knitting this may be a little tricky for a first timer. There are decreases and it’s in the round which make it a little tougher to learn on. However, if you’re an adventurous go-getter who is capable of following written instructions without panicking you’ll do fine. I wrote out very clearly how to follow my charts, so even if you’ve never read a chart before I honestly think you’ll be just fine. After all, a mosaic color-work chart is WAY EASIER to follow than charts written by those sadistic lace designers.

If you’re not an adventurous go-getter capable of following written directions without panicking, then I would happily direct you toward my “The Plaidness Monster” pattern, which was written as a tutorial on mosaic knitting.