New Release: Wine in the Wool Hat & Cowl Set

It's time for this week's addition to the Color Packs & Stash Scraps collection, and this week it's another 2-for-1 set!

Introducing the "Wine in the Wool" hat & cowl set!

This attractive pair features an easy stripe pattern that alternates solid stripes with textured color transitions.  You'll have a few rows where you are working with 2 strands of color, followed by a few more rows where you only work with 1 strand of yarn.  There's a little bit of alternating knit and purl and a whole lot of stockinette.

"Wine in the Wool" pairs beautifully with the Mad Hatter mini skein packs from Frabjous Fibers.  These mini skein packs are 430 sport-weight yds. of of smooth & soft 100% merino in 5 different colors.  The cowl uses an entire pack and the hat uses about 2/3 of a pack or less, depending on the size you choose to make.  

The samples in these photos were made from the "Mice in the Tea" color pack.  The yarn has a very subtle tonal variation, but it almost reads like a solid, which is great for showing off the textured & alternating colors bits of this stitch pattern!

My local yarn shop started carrying Mad Hatter sometime last year, and I have quite an affinity for it.  My Wonderland Tank pattern was written for the same yarn, and there's actually another pattern that is yet to be released for this collection that uses more Mad Hatter because the folks at Frabjous Fibers were so generous with their support!

Speaking of generous people, I owe a big thank you to MargiBorck & Wolflovertoo.   They both tested the full set, and shared photos of their lovely hats & cowls in their Ravelry project pages!  Another big thank you goes to my friend who did a beautiful job modeling this set, and then told me I didn't need to take her out to lunch as a thank-you.  (But I did need to, and she was also nice enough to let me!)

This is a great simple knit for tv/movie-watching, or for car knitting when you're off on holiday travels.  There is nothing difficult about the knitting itself (just knit, purl, knitting in the round, and being able to alternate colors), but the hat does require you to continue in the established stitch pattern as you work the decreases.  If you're doing the whole set, make the cowl first, that way you'll have lots of time to become familiar with the 2-stitch pattern before you have to figure out how to work it while decreasing.

The instructions in this pattern are written, but it does require you to be able to read a chart.  (Albeit one of the simplest charts you'll even read....each row is just 4 stitches that repeat over & over, and lots of those rows are just "knit".)

The two projects are packaged together in one pdf, so whether you purchase it from the Wine in the Wool Hat pattern page or the Wine in the Wool Cowl pattern page, you'll download the exact same document with instructions for both projects.  Or better yet, maybe it's time to purchase the full Color Packs & Stash Scraps pattern collection and download the first 8 patterns immediately, then look forward to 5 more patterns appearing in your pattern library, one per week until the week of Christmas!