Cartouche Cowl

I was paging through Japanese stitch dictionaries and found the main pattern used in this cowl. It reminded me of an Egyptian cartouche and I visualized it in a deeper vibrant red. That design, Cartouche Shawl, was published in Knitty, Winter 2011. I’ve since used these stitch patterns in the Cartouche Slouchy Beret and the Cartouche Stole; however, I still wasn’t done with this design and knew that I wanted to do a cowl.

The Cartouche Cowl begins with a provisional cast on and the piece is worked along the circumference and then the two ends are grafted together. The border pattern are slightly modified from the one used in the Cartouche Stole so, if you’ve knit already knit that piece, you’ll want to pay extra attention to the final few rows of the chart.


Skills Required:

• Increasing and decreasing
• Following charts
• Cables
• Lace
• Twisted Stitches
• Blocking

Finished Size (blocked): 10”/25.4 cm wide by 27 (54)”/68.58 (137.16) cm circumference


Other Tools:

• Stitch markers (8)
• Cable needles (2)
• Waste yarn and crochet hook, size USG/6 (4.00 mm) or larger for provisional cast on
• Tapestry needle
• Blocking wires and Tpins

Yarn: 317 (634) yards/290 (580) meters of wool or merino DK weight yarn that knits up to 5.5 sts/inch.


Shown In: Estelle ‘Eco Andean DK Wool’, (350 yards/320 meters; 100% merino; 3.53 oz/100 grams per skein), 1 skein in colour 004, size short.