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Knit a cowl with a mock cable pattern

by Charles Voth

Here’s an easy to knit cowl with a stitch pattern that imitates or mocks a knit cable pattern. I know that many people say not to knit pattern stitches with multicolored yarn because you won’t be able to see the pattern, but I tend to be a bit rebellious, so I tried using Classic Shades Frenzy and really like the results.

Picture of cowl laid out flat in fall colors with 2 wide panels of mock cable pattern going bottom up.

Knit this easy and quick one skein cowl project with a mock cable pattern

While the color repeats aren’t dyed to be extremely long, some of them are long enough to work into wide stripes when worked across just a few stitches. There are 32 stitches to one side of this cowl. Why would I make a 2-sided cowl and seam the sides? Well, the truth will be revealed tomorrow, but for now, let’s say that working across 40 stitches on size US10 [6mm] needles produced these lovely 1″ to 2″ wide stripes with a few 1-row stripes in between.

A close-up of the mock cable pattern showing the ridge formed by the decreased stitches

This easy mock cable pattern uses yarn overs and some strategic decreases to create the illusion of a twist.

I also really like how the mock cable pattern gives the stripes in the fabric a little tilt here and there. Definitely worth being a rebel. For those of you who think that knitting cables is hard, working up a mock cable is a great easy solution.

Garter stitches frame the mock cable pattern to create a real cable look, columns of garter st ridges on either side keep the mock cable from distorting the fabric

Garter stitches frame the mock cable pattern to create a real cable look.

If you know how to make a yarn over, purl 2 stitches together, and a left-leaning decrease, you can make this pattern.

Here’s the stitch diagram and instructions for the mock cable. To make this lovely cowl, you’ll only need 1 ball of Classic Shades Frenzy and size US10 [6mm] needles. Make 2 panels and sew them together along the garter stitch ridges.

Cast on 32 sts and knit the ribbing first as follows:

Row 1 (WS): K4, [p2, k2, p2, k2, p2, k4] twice.

Row 2 (RS): Knit.

Rows 3 & 4: Rep Rows 1 and 2.

Row 5: Rep Row 1

Then work your way across the stitch diagram (or text instructions below) repeating the stitches and rows in the blue box.

Stitch Diagram for Mock Cable Pattern

Stitch Diagram for Mock Cable Pattern

Work until you have 4 complete repeats of Rows 1-10 (4 mock cables) and then work 1 plain knit row and then rows 1-4 of the ribbing again. Cast off loosely.

Tomorrow I’ll explain how to take this one-ball project and make it into a 2-ball project.

We’ll also look more in depth at a new-to-me left-leaning decrease that you may want to wait to try out.

Text Instructions

Row 1: K4, yo, k3, K2togtw, k13.

Row 2: K4, p8, k2tog, p3, yo, p1, k4.

Row 3: K6, yo, k3, K2togtw, k11.

Row 4: K4, p6, k2tog, p3, yo, p3, k4.

Row 5: K8, yo, k3, K2togtw, k9.

Row 6: K4, p4, k2tog, p3, yo, p5, k4.

Row 7: K10, yo, k3, K2togtw, k7.

Row 8: K4, p2, k2tog, p3, yo, p7, k4.

Row 9: K12, yo, k3, K2togtw, k5.

Row 10: K4, k2tog, p3, yo, p9, k4.

Rows 11-20: Repeat rows 1-10.

Special Abbreviation:

Knit 2 together with a twist (K2togtw): Knit 2 together by inserting RH needle in front leg of first st and then in back leg of 2nd st, then knit, drawing up loop between strands as usual.

Beautiful stripes created by Classic Shades Frenzy chunky yarn, close-up of dark versus light colors in long repeats of yarn

Beautiful stripes created by Classic Shades Frenzy chunky yarn

This is part 2 of 5 in this series.
Go back to part 1:  Knitting with Classic Shades Frenzy

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2 comments

Charles Voth October 27, 2016 - 2:24 pm

Hope you give it a try soon! Let us know how it goes.

Reply
Rolanda Tovey October 26, 2016 - 7:17 pm

Looks interesting.

Reply

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