Optionality Cowl and Beanie Set - Digital Download

There are plenty of options with this pattern.

•    Cowl with a hyperbolic ruffle
•    Two colour cowl (no ruffle)
•    Two colour beanie

Each design blends sections of stockinette and garter stitches to create fun and engaging patterns, all with delightful pops of colour!

The pattern is designed for an 8ply (DK) yarn. Please see instructions for gauge details.

Techniques

In this pattern there are several techniques used, they are explained in the last section of the pattern. Some have links to short videos.

Yarn

This pattern is designed for 8ply yarn. I used The House Dye, McLaren base. This is an 8ply yarn 115g, 230m. All measurements listed below are based on this yarn. 

The gauge required to obtain the listed measurements is 20 stitches per 10cm using a 4.5mm needle.  A swatch is recommended.
For the ruffle version of the cowl (one colour base) you will need two different coloured skeins. Unfortunately, there will not be enough yarn of the main colour to make a matching beanie. If you want to make a matching beanie, you will need two skeins of your main colour.

For the two colour cowl version, the cowl and the large beanie are made from two skeins of coordinating colours in The House Dye McLaren yarn, with a little left over!

Ruffle Cowl – Main colour approx. 90g - 180m, Ruffle 35g - 70m
Two Colour Cowl – Colour A 40g - 20m, Colour B 55g - 28m
Beanie (based on the medium size) Colour A 40g - 20m, Colour B 45g - 23m

Materials

Cowl
4.5mm circular needle (or equivalent size needle to meet gauge). I used a circular needle, 80cm in length. 5 buttons (20mm). For the ruffle cowl you will also need a 5mm circular needle (or a needle one size bigger than you used on the main cowl to meet gauge).

Beanie
4.0mm needle for the brim and 4.5mm for the rest of the beanie (or equivalent size needed to meet gauge).  I used a 50cm cable.  When you start decreasing, use your preferred needle method i.e. double pointed needles or magic loop.

You will then need the normal army of accessories: stitch markers, scissors, tapestry needle and any other handy implement you use in your knitting!!

Sizing

The cowl is one size (80cm x 16cm).
Beanie: there are three sizes:
Small, Medium & Large 
The medium fits Mat perfectly; his head circumference is 28cm (23 inches).