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Arlesford Cowl

The Arlesford cowl is a mosaic design and knit in the round.  Only one colour of yarn is worked at a time.  The cowl is wider at the base than the neck, which allows it to spread over your shoulders as you wear it.  This is a cowl for town life, perfect for a bit of shopping and lunching.  It’s named for Arlesford, a small market town in Hampshire, England. The town centre is the perfect setting for ladies who lunch; Georgian buildings are filled with pavement cafes and boutique shops. 

The pattern is for one size. The finished size is:
Circumference at bottom: 96cm (37.75inch)
Circumference at top: 54cm (21.25inch)
Depth: 30cm (12 inch)

You can find the pattern for the Arlesford cowl on Ravelry or payhip. 

a woman looks towards the camera, she is wearing a brown jacket and a large cowl in autumnal colours.

Make it your own

Working mosaic knitting flat

You may choose to adapt the pattern to make it into a scarf, or other accessory.  I would encourage you to do that – make the thing that will bring you joy.  However, it may mean that you need to work the new item flat, rather than in the round.  That is possible, and I discuss various ways of adjusting the pattern in this post.  I’d recommend that you have a read, if you are thinking of tweaking the arlesford cowl pattern in this way.

Colour Inspiration

I am always a  sucker for a bit of autumn colour, and so I chose to make my cowl in the fall colours of yellow, green and orange.  There are many different options for colour ways; the yarn I used, stylecraft special DK, has a whopping 98 colours to choose from.

I do not (alas) have colour pegs for all the colours in the range, but spent a happy half hour or so working out some alternative colour schemes with the options that I do have.

Autumn inspired colours

A view upwards into the branches of a tree with autumn foliage in green, red, orange and yellow.
Photo by Fineas Anton on Unsplash
close up of yarn wound on a ball in various shades.

Strong autumn colours.  This is the original colour way.  I used meadow, lime, dandelion, gold, spice, tomato and walnut.

A view over red and pink leaved trees on a hillside, partially obscured by swirling mist.
Photo by Erica Li on Unsplash
close up of yarn wound on a ball in various shades.

A softer version of autumn.  Colours recipe: meadow, pistachio, camel, stone, vintage peach, shrimp and mocha.

Winter inspired colours

Cooler blues purples, with just a pop of colour for fun.  Winter colours used are: violet, lavender, bluebell, denim, grey and boysenberry.

Close up of a flower's seed heads against the snow
Photo by Nani Williams on Unsplash
close up of yarn wound on a ball in various shades.

Perhaps the colours don’t match this photo of a winter flower exactly, but I do think that it captures the mood.  This is a more muted version of the winter colours.  I chose storm blue, sage, lincoln, duck egg, silver, mushroom, and grape.

This option really sang to me, which was a surprise as I usually like the stronger colours.  It was only whilst swatching up for another project that i realised a subset of these (grape, mushroom, sage and storm blue) are the colours of my website.  No wonder I liked it!

Other inspirations

Pretty much anything goes for this recipe.  The main idea is that you have bright ideas against black.   Here I have gone for rainbow colours: proper purple, royal, green, sunshine, spice, lipstick and black.

Another option is to choose a smaller range of colours.  I did this for my friendship cowl pattern, were I used up various blues, greens and purples against black. 

a vivid sunset in purples, pinks, and yellows.
Photo by Adi Ulici on Unsplash
close up of yarn wound on a ball in various shades.

And finally, for some real drama: saffron, shrimp, magenta, boysenberry, proper purple, emperor and french navy.

If you have some time to spend happily browsing all the yummy ways that yarn can go together, I hugely recommend browsing through the mood boards of Pippin Poppycock.  There is bound to be something that sings out to you from all the amazing options there.