Cozy and soft accordion stitch cowl

This is another “salvage” project which became one of my favorite things to wrap around my neck on a crisp morning or a breezy evening. The pattern is basically all garter stiches, except that it breaks the garter at every 4th stitch by consistent threads of knit or purl stitch. I picked up this ingenious (free) pattern from Purl Soho’s Pleated Wrap, and decided to adapt it for a waterfall cardigan.

After almost finishing the body and trying it on, I discovered the pattern used in such a volume looks leaden and instead donning a flowy, cascading fronts, the cardigan looked weighed down. After more than half-way through unravelling the piece, I took another look and thought it could actually make a cozy and pretty double-layer cowl or a short scarf.

A waterfall pattern essentially consists of a rectangular body with two slits for arms, and unraveling to the size good for a cowl was exceedingly easy – just stop and BO loosely at a desired height.

This is a simple piece to use up a few skeins of left-over yarns. This example uses about 420 yards, and depending on what you have, you can stop at any point after 9″ or so in height. You can also make it as a single layer piece. Typical cowl height and circumference are about 9″ – 12″ x 50″ – 60″ for double-layer and 10″ – 13″ x 23″ – 26″ for single-layer. This one measures 10″ x 60″.

This example has three thin stripes and that’s because the original cardigan used a few different colors and I inserted another color yarn after the end of each skein of the main color. You can use bolder stripes or just a solid color. As long as it feels soft and cozy around your neck, you can use any worsted yarn and pick up a needle accordingly. If you like a soft cowl, I recommend perhaps using a needle one size larger than usual.

Because it was originally meant as a cardigan, this pattern is knit flat. You can certainly knit in circular to avoid sewing at the end. However, the simplicity of garter stitch can be lost in circular knitting because you need to remember to alternate knit and purl every row.

Diagram and Instructions

• Loosely CO multiples of 8 stitches, one stitch more than than a regular flat pattern (multiples of 8 + 7) to account for seams to sew at the end. For this example, CO 224 sts (8 x 28)
• Row 1 (WS): K4, *p1, k7, repeat from * 27 times to the last 4 sts, p1, k3.
• Row 2 (RS): *k7, p1, repeat from * 28 times to the end.
• Repeat Row 1 and 2 until it reaches a desired height. This example is 84 rows (CO + 41 garter “ridges”+ BO).
• For this, I inserted a row or two with an alternate color at the end of each skein of the main color yarn.
• BO loosely and sew the ends.