Saturday 20th November - Advent Cowl Planning (3) - The Schedule and making a start

 Final Schedule - for now at any rate!

The idea is that there will be two rounds of knitting every day Mon-Fri; 108 stitches in total, taking around 10 minutes per day. 

Saturdays and Sundays won't have a chart or instructions as they will be catch up days. I'll post the instructions early in the day - it will be a good opportunity for me to discover how to schedule posts in advance! 

Yarn

You will need Aran yarn in two contrasting colours. I have bought 100g of main and 50g of contrast because I wasn' sure how much this would take. My sample cowl which is a little smaller in width and depth weighs 35g so you might manage with 50g of each colour. I'd rather have too much and use the rest for a hat for a charity box or present. But there is no reason why you should stick to the same two colours throughout, and indeed you can use two strands of double knitting held together as an equivalent to Aran, as I did when making the (slightly too small) sample cowl below.

Needles

4mm and 5mm circular needles 40cm long from tip to tip.

SANITY WARNING - I have never properly designed and written down a knitting pattern before - follow me at your own risk! I will, however, start my cowl now, so that I keep ahead and hopefully spot problems before they go out. 

Here's how it starts, if you want to see how it goes...

Day 1 Thursday 

• Cast on 104 stitches on 4mm needles using Aran yarn in main colour. Join into a round without twisting, place start of round marker (a loop of contrasting yarn). 
• Round 1; single rib to end (K1 P1). 

Day 2 Friday

• Check your knitting carefully - if the stitches have been joined with a twist, now is your only chance to twist them back where the join is! 
• Round 1; knit 
• Round 2; single rib in main

Here's mine, half way through day 2. And yes, I did twist the stitches - I was so engrossed in dealing with the consequences of casting on using a mm needles, and then joining using a 4mm needle that I forgot to check. But, I did manage to untwist myself - hurrah. So that's the first mistake already before I even began to knit. It is a fairly forgiving pattern.... it has to be! 

Day 5 Monday (the mystery patterns begin!)

• change to 5mm needle
• Round 1; knit
• Round 2; *knit 1 Contrast, knit 1 Main* for the whole row

This is where I have got to on Friday evening; partway through round 2 of Monday. You can see the 'every other stitch' colour pattern, and also my beginning of round marker.

I shan't post any more photographs of the cowl until December. 

Rest of the schedule;

Days  6, 7, 8, 9,    12, 13, 14, 15, 16,    19, 20, 21, 22, 23      follow the daily charts for two rounds of a knitting a day 

Day 22 Thursday

• change to 4mm needles
• Round; 1 Single rib
• Round; 2 Knit

Day 23 Friday

• Round 1 Single Rib
• Pick up a 5mm needle and use it to cast off all stitches. Cut off yarn and weave in all the ends

Day 24 (Saturday - Christmas Eve) Wear your new cowl!