The Paganino Cowl is a long, luxurious, stranded cowl, using a single solid colour, and a set of five different gradient contrast colours.

The pattern work is taken from a 16th-century Italian book of needlework and embroidery patterns, called Il Burato. The book was published by Alessandro Paganino, and this cowl is named in honour of the man who collected these patterns nearly five hundred years ago, so that we can use them and enjoy them half a millennium later.

The astonishing thing is that many of these designs look as fresh and modern today as they would have done all those years ago.

The Paganino Cowl begins and ends with a corrugated rib edging, cycling through all five of the contrast colours. It also features a beautiful and stylish vikkel braid (or Estonian/lateral braid) at both edges, and the main body of the cowl is the 16th-century pattern, rendered with stranded knitting, once again, revolving all five contrasting colours, starting with the darkest, working through to the lightest across the middle, then back to the lightest again at the other side.

The whole effect is one of beauty and cohesion. The cowl can be worn long, or twisted around the neck twice to wrap up really warm. (And the best thing is, none of the stretches of any one colour in the stranded section are any longer than five stitches, so there is no need to catch any floats! Brill!)

I used a solid, dark, background colour, and a set of five different gradient shades for the contrast colour, but you could easily use a lighter solid colour for the contrast as well.