If you’re looking for an easy project to knit up your variegated yarns, the Winterberry Cowl is just perfect! It’s a very simple pattern which uses the Assigned Pooling technique to knit stretches of color in linen stitch to make them pop against a background of stockinette. The cowl is worked flat and side-to-side, with simple increases and decreases to create a parallelogram shape. This adds bias to the fabric for beautiful drape and visual interest. A simple three-needle bind-off at the end creates the cowl loop!

Yarn used: My cowl used about 320 yds (293 m) of Madelinetosh Tosh DK in “Riiiicccckkkky” (2 skeins; color custom to Jimmy Beans Wool). You can get a similar result with about 300-350 yards of any DK-weight yarn. Gauge is not critically important in this pattern!

Choosing a yarn and assigning pooling: Nearly any variegated yarn could work for this project, though you typically want the assigned pooling color to be distinct from the other colors of the skein. In the yarn I used, every loop of the skein had two short bursts of berry on a background of cream/pink/gray; the berry was assigned to be worked in linen stitch. Typically, the assigned pooling color is about 25% of the total skein.

Modifying the pattern: This pattern is easily modifiable for different yarn weights and gauges: simply cast on more or fewer stitches, and work to a desired length! The pattern includes instructions about how to calculate the number of stitches to cast on.