hap cowl

Hello! I’m back, sooner than I thought with my new pattern! It is a cowl, which if you know me you know I wear most days. It is inspired (obviously by the name) by Shetland Haps. Haps seem to have been everywhere lately, what with Kates book and the numerous Hap knit-a-longs there have been. Last year I made a Half Hap, from Gudrun’s brilliant Hansel pattern and that planted a seed in my head about the construction of a Hap inspired pattern.

My favourite thing about Haps are that the elements of it are not complicated at all, but the final thing is extremely effective to look at and makes you feel like a smarty pants. I decided to use the garter stitch and simple lace elements in my cowl, Now, I’m a Shetlander who as a group avoid purling If we possibly can, so the pattern is knit flat and then sewn into a cowl. (this means you can keep the piece as a scarf too if you like (a two in one pattern… truly a bargain….!)

I am constantly inspired by nature in Shetland and there are two distinct things which inspire me, the land and the sea. These two things are both represented in my colourways, of which I provide two in the pattern.

My first colourway was inspired by the sea,sand and cliffs of Shetland, I use J&S 2ply Jumper Weight in the pattern for both colourways and this one uses shades 54 (grey) FC61 (blue grey) FC45 (camel) FC43 (beige) and 202 (light fawn) I actually did quite a lot of swatching and samples (shock horror, I know – I’m learning!) before I decided on the order and manner of colour changing

I was so pleased with how my first sample came out but I still had an idea for another colourway inspired by my other favourite thing – the land.

This year the heather on the hills in Shetland has been so lovely, it’s starting to fade now but the colours are still beautiful which was my inspirations for the second colourway of the pattern. This sample uses FC58 (brown heather) FC55 (purple) FC38 (orange) 1284 (light pinky mix) and 202 (light fawn) The actual knitting is not hard at all but I asked Sandra that I work with if she would knit up this sample for me which she did!

I used the good old yarn wrap technique to decide on this colourway which for these kinds of patterns is a fail safe way to help plan out colour changes. You simply wrap and stick the yarn in the same amount of rows as you will be knitting and it gives you a great visual as to whether the colours will work or not. I knew I was happy with the lace placement so for my second colourway before I got Sandra to knit it I just did a yarn wrap.

So, if you like my Hap Cowl pattern you can now purchase it on Ravelry here! I’m really enjoying trying to do more designs and I hope you like it!

Speak soon :) xxx