Irish Mesh Knit Cowl

At the Rose City Yarn Crawl this year, I was lucky enough to discover Thoroughly Thwacked yarns!  (Edit:  This company's name has been changed to Fierce Fibers.  The above link will still take you there.)Stacey is the Oregon artist behind this indie line and what a palette of colors!!  If you haven't run across her yarn before, you have to take a look on her website at the gorgeous colorways and the hilariously entertaining names.  Like Pastry Bandit, Poison Apple, and Bruised Fairy.  Every name has a backstory - I got to visit with her for a short while and hear about the man on an overpass throwing chocolate frosted/rainbow sprinkled pastries onto the cars below and inspiring Pastry Bandit.  Seriously I could've listened to how they all were named - she needs to publish these!  It was hard to decide which one to buy, but since St. Patrick's Day is coming up and I seem to be short of green to wear, I chose Paddy Cake.

I designed this simple cowl using it.  It's long enough to be looped twice or you can just let it hang around your neck as an accent.  Mine is about 5 inches wide when blocked and used about 300 yards - if you'd like to make yours wider, there is plenty of yarn to do that with.  And if you'd rather make yours a shorter cowl, just make sure you cast on a multiple of three plus one.

Materials:
1 skein fingering weight yarn.  I used Thoroughly Thwacked's Vixen, a super soft merino/silk blend.
Size 5 circular needles
Stitch marker

Cast on 301 300.  Edit:  Cast on should be 300 not 301 stitches - let me know if this still does not work.  Join to form a circle, being careful not to twist into a moebius.  Or if that happens anyway, decide you wanted a moebius cowl afterall!  Place stitch marker and begin.

Set up rows:
Row 1:  knit all the way around
Row 2:  purl all the way around 
Row 3:  knit
Row 4:  purl

Mesh section:
Row 1:  Knit (k) 2, *yarn over (yo), slip 1, k2, pass slip stitch over both knit stitches.*  Repeat instructions between *'s until you have 1 stitch left - knit this stitch.
Row 2:  Purl
Row 3:  K1, *slip 1, k2, pass slip stitch over both knit stitches, yo*.  Repeat instructions between *'s until you have 2 stitches left - knit these stitches.
Row 4:  Purl

Repeat rows 1 - 4 of the mesh section until cowl is the desired width.  End by repeating the set up rows and then bind off.  Give the cowl a fairly aggressive blocking to open up the mesh.

Happy Creating!  Deborah