Knitting Pattern Cowl – Floating Sunset (from the Woven Floats Series)
Just launched today! This is the sixth cowl knitting pattern in the Woven Floats series. The dramatic splashes of colour highlight a subtle patina of clouds spread across the sky above a setting sun. The cowl is knit bottom up in the round using one circular needle. It has been Tech Edited and Tested. A picture chart and full written chart instructions are included. Tutorials for the Woven Floats technique with photos are included. Scroll down for yarn and colour combo recommendations.
Buy this knitting pattern on my Store Ravelry
Before I get in to details about the making of the design, let’s look at the basics you need to know.
Technical details
Dimensions
Regular size 62 cm x 20 cm (24 ½″ x 7 ¾″)
Large size 92 cm x 20 cm (36 ¼″ x 7 ¾″)
Gauge
22 sts x 32 rows on 3.5mm (US size 4) needles in 10 cm x 10 cm for the woven floats after blocking.
This will vary depending on your yarn and style of knitting. Being a cowl, it is not essential to match the gauge.
Equipment
3.5mm (US size 4) circular needle 60cm (24″) long
Darning needle and scissors
Open lock stitch markers in three colours
How much Yarn do I need?
2-5 colours of Fingering weight, 4 ply yarns. MC is one colour. CC can be one ball/cake of ombre (slow variegated colour) or you can split the length evenly into several solid colours.
Regular size
MC 140 m (154 yards) and CC approximately 280m (306 yards)
Large size
MC 210 m (230 yards) and CC approximately 420m (459 yards)
Choose yarns that have some stability. Avoid yarns that have a lot of drape or elasticity.
The Sample is worked in Regular size using 5 colours.
140m for MC and then around 70m (77 yards) of each of 4 colours for CC.
More info about the Yarns can be found below.
What was the inspiration for this Knitting Pattern?
To start, I was searching for colourful sunsets from Australia and spotted this beauty from the Experience Oz website. I really have been a witness to this type of amazing sunset. However, for this one, it is possible they’ve used a colour lens or added post production tints. What I loved about this sunset image was that the main colour was not blue. The sunset blasts its golden rays across the underside of the clouds and into the water. What colours can you see? Burnt orange, golden yellow, bright pink, a plum and warm purple. Meanwhile, the actual sky in the background goes through its own range of wonderful colours. Almost electric blue, mauve to the left, blue purple and the palest blue in the bottom right corner.
I also loved the black silhouette of the bridge and shadow in the waves. Generally speaking, I don’t use black in my knitting designs, so could easily translate this to the deepest purple.
Creating the Cowl Knitting Pattern
Exploring the Woven Floats Technique has been really fun. Originally, I started with a very simple repeated chart pattern in the Woven Illusions Cowl, then added new ideas to expand the range of stitch techniques for each new cowl pattern as the series progressed. This time, I took the technical additions I had experimented with from the previous cowl – the UFO Sky Cowl version 2 – and used them more abundantly in this design. Here, the goal was to see if I could create outlines for curved shapes which don’t come naturally using this technique. It worked well!
I’m not sure I had as much bright yellow as I would have liked. I could have made longer floats but then they are more easy to catch on buttons, hair clips etc. The shapes have come out well. I made a dark silhouette for the clouds closest to the sun but decided against this in the end. The original design was one enormous chart which my testers had a problem following so, I simplified to a 68 stitch chart which can be repeated 2 or 3 times.
I didn’t want 2 or 3 suns around the cowl so, dropped it from the altered pattern design.
Choosing Yarns for the Knitting Pattern
The challenge I set myself for the Woven Floats Series was to not buy any new wool. I had my golden yellow yarn already chosen. When making the Sunny Halter from the Vivacious Vest series, I originally bought a DK 8ply weight skein of the glorious “Sunset Dreams” from the very talented, Australian Hand Dyers “Yarn Dreams”. Because there are two layers in the Sunny Halter design I decided 2 x 8 ply would get too hot. So I reordered more of the same fabulous colourway in Fingering weight instead. The Floating Sunset Cowl gave me the perfect opportunity to use my extra DK weight skein.
Improvements
Looking at the finished result, I would recommend 2 x Fingering Weight strands held together would make a bolder MC float colour and my yellow would have stood out more. The single strand of DK weight is not quite as thick as I would have liked. (2 x Fingering Weight = Worsted Weight).
For the solid colours, I did the same thing as with the UFO Sky Cowls. I took the excess Estate 4 ply yarns I already had in my stash from Morris and Sons, went back to the shop and they kindly swapped them for my new colours.
For the base colour I wanted something that referenced the original sunset image which is very dark, almost black – Imperial purple. I wanted the remaining 3 colours to be of similar light value. The whole sunset theme is worked around a play on light, but the CC colours also must be contrasting to the yellow. You can see these yarn colours are very similar tints – each is a good solid mid tone.
The orange colour is Tuscan. I had some left over from making the Koala Kid vest. The remaining two colours were Petunia (pink) and Crayon Blue.
Yarn Suppliers
MC: The truly unique “Sunset Dreams” 100% merino wool from Yarn Dreams Hand Dyed on Etsy. If you can’t see Sunset Dreams in the Etsy shop, feel free to contact them directly and they should be able to dye it for you. https://www.etsy.com/au/shop/YarnDreamsHandDyed
CC: Imperial Purple, Tuscan, Petunia and Crayon Blue Estate 4 ply 100% Australian wool from Morris & Sons https://morrisandsons.com.au/
Changing the Cowl Design Colours
I’ve added some guidance into the pattern instructions so, if you prefer to work with 4, 3 or even just 2 colours, you can do so. However, the cowl knitting pattern design itself is interesting already so, the colour changes working up the chart for CC can be removed. If you are using an ombre, or very slow colour change via a ball or cake, you can run with just two colours, one for MC and one for CC.
What other colours could you do for the sky? There are so many combinations.
How about:
- Mid toned mauve detail on a peach/pink/apricot sky
- Mid grey detail on a pale rainbow coloured sky
- Charcoal detail on a fiery red/orange sky
The sky is literally the limit!
Is this the End?
This Floating Sunset cowl knitting pattern was meant to be my Grand Finale to the Woven Floats series but, as expected, I now have at least 4 more ideas I could add on. Is it the end? Well…. maybe just one more. 🙂
Buy this knitting pattern Cowl on my Store Ravelry