This pattern is available on KnitCompanion here.

While I adore the look of stranded and Fair Isle knitting, I am not such a big fan of the mechanics of the process. Enter “Marlisle”, a technique that provides a lot of the look with less of the fuss.

I am also totally in love with all of the lace weight mohair/silk blend yarns that have been steadily gaining in popularity. While I enjoy simply using them to subtly shift the look and feel of an overall fabric, it occurred to me that it could be fun to play with the possibilities of color-work. So here we are.

By knitting sometimes with the lace held double with the fingering weight and sometimes with the individual yarns separately, a super fun and subtle visual effect can be achieved with a minimum of fussy yarn management.

Combining a light color of light fingering weight yarn with a variegated lace mohair adds to the shifting colors that you can achieve. At times the color-work is strongly visible but when the variegation loses contrast with the fingering weight the color-work fades. Randomness is something that can be a challenge to create in knitting patterns and the variegated yarn does all the work for you in this case. Of course, if you use a solid color of mohair it will look super cool too! It just depends what look you desire.

You will need
~ 425 - 450 yards of light fingering weight yarn and
~ 504 yards of laceweight mohair (or alpaca)/silk blend yarn

Notions:
Finger yarn guide, stitch markers, removable stitch markers, 8 buttons (optional)

Stitches used: knit, purl, slip

This cowl is worked as a tube and then sewn together in a slightly unorthodox manner. You can also use a provisional cast on/grafting technique if you are comfortable with substituting that.

a note on substituting yarns
Laceweight mohair blends come in a variety of different yardages per ball and some have more/less yardage than others. The way this pattern is written the second half of your knitting is simply stripes of alternating light fingering and lace weight. If you have less yardage on the lace weight you can simply do fewer stripes. And if you are pressed for yardage you can choose to knit the connecting tab in the light fingering weight yarn as opposed to the mohair.

If you’d like to see this cowl in action make sure to check out the pattern tour video on my YouTube channel Watch Barbara Knit here.